Biblio

This study was mounted to assess the status of Addis Ababa City with regard to accessibility of workplace and other public places to persons with physical disabilities, with a view to influencing change in the built environment. Public buildings, transport and telecommunication sector, learning institutions and hospitality industry were the target of this research. A total of 24 public and private service providers were sampled for assessment using a combination of random and purposeful sampling methods. Primary data was collected with the aid of questionnaires, actual measurements, observation method, focus group discussion and in-depth discussions with resource persons. Government policy and legal documents were consulted too. It was found out that Addis Ababa is home to about 273,825 persons with disabilities and most (70%) of work and public places are inaccessible despite high degree of awareness among the service providers. Anti-exclusion policies and proclamations are scattered in various official documents but there is no comprehensive national policy on disability. On-going disability programmes focus mainly on rehabilitation and little attention is paid to physical accessibility. This paper proposes innovative options to achieve accessibility including: formulation of national policy on disability, zoning of story buildings, review of curricula for professionals, attitude change, budgeting, mainstreaming disability, benchmarking.