Do public representatives in local governments know about disability rights in Pakistan? An awareness assessment case from Southern Punjab

Local self-government systems have been adopted in many countries to supervise local interests in development and provide a range of goods and services to localities. It is believed that awareness of certain issues itself guides duty-bearers to reshape and divert development in a certain direction. In Pakistan, elected representatives in district governments are the key duty-bearers at the local level. Hence, their awareness is indispensable to decision-making for local development and, thus, it is pertinent to assess it from a disability rights perspective. In-depth information collected from two districts has reflected that most of the public representatives are ill-informed about disability, day-to-day problems of disabled persons and their rights, which results in inadvertently disability-biased local development planning. An overriding impression gained from the results is that raising elected representatives' awareness on disability and the rights of disabled people is imperative to embracing disability rights practice in local development.