Advancing the Inclusive Agenda for People of Determination in the UAE Through Sustainable Innovations
According to the United Nations, around 10% of the world’s population live with either a medical impairment or a disability. An impairment is regarded as a medically identified condition or a long-term limitation of a person’s physical, mental, cognitive,
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Advancing the Inclusive Agenda for People of Determination in the UAE Through Sustainable Innovations Racquel Warner and Immanuel Azaad Moonesar
Introduction This investigation of the increasing public and governmental discourse around inclusion in the United Arab Emirates reveals the profound transformation in the social and economic perceptions about disability. The accelerated leveraging of technology and appropriation of resources to remove barriers in the UAE society that once caused exclusion of a particular group of people is an example of what future responses around the world should look like. The government has taken the lead in shifting the discourse around people of determination from being a burden on society to becoming a social and economic asset. This paradigm shift has now resulted in the UAE becoming active participants in the global disability market which comprises of an estimated 1.27 billion consumers, and equating to nearly one in five people worldwide. This trend is expected to continue into the future as the inclusive agenda of the UAE gains more traction and more people of determination are brought into the wider economy. Added to this consumer demography are relatives and friends with an associated attachment to the consumer-related needs of persons with disabilities. The total global disability market is approximated at over $8 trillion (Return on Disability Group 2016).
R. Warner (*) • I. A. Moonesar Mohammed Bin Rashid School of Government, Dubai, United Arab Emirates e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] © The Author(s) 2021 S. H. Park et al. (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Corporate Sustainability in the Digital Era, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-42412-1_39
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People of Determination The UAE refers to the people with special needs or disabilities as “people of determination” in recognition of their achievements in different fields. They are protected and empowered through services and facilities in the areas of education, health, jobs and other ventures (UAE Government 2020; Camulli and Xie 2019). Under the National Policy for Empowering People, a person with special needs is regarded as someone suffering from a temporary or permanent, full or partial deficiency or infirmity in his physical, sensory, mental, communication, educational or psychological abilities to an extent that limits his possibility of performing the ordinary requirements as people without special needs (UAE Government 2020). The UAE Cabinet approved a People of Determination Protection from Abuse Policy which aims to protect the people with special needs from abuse while empowering them (UAE Cabinet 2020. The government condemns all forms of abuse and neglect of people of determination. Abuse and neglects involve depriving people of determination of their basic right to care, rehabilitation, medical care, recreation or community integration. It also condemns using such people to get material profits (UAE Cabinet 2020). The People of Determi
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