”Select ALL” e-Accessibility Assessment Report for South Eastern Europe
communities is less profitable, many services are either unaffordable or unavailable, and the required skills to support effective use are often not present. This is particularly evident in the area of e-Services and e-Governance as access to public services can be a means to overcome exclusion and thus redress the imbalance in opportunities. The report makes a strong case for the critical role of the state in making online public services, assistive technologies and access to ICTs available to people with disabilities. This publication provides for the first time a mapping of e-Accessibility actions in the SEE region, summarizing achievements and good practices; it highlights implementation challenges, outlines lessons learnt, and makes recommendations towards the future advancement of eAccessibility in light of the UNCRPD, the e-SEE Initiative and EU accession commitments. Moreover, the report identifies a number of major challenges in the areas of physical accessibility, access to education from an early age, the adequacy of allowances and social support, and access to employment, among others. The focus on e-Accessibility is in no way intended to undermine the daunting challenges involved in these wider areas. Rather, the argument is that enhanced e-Accessibility can improve the overall personal environment of people with disabilities in other areas, bring its own benefits, and — perhaps most important — can and should be successfully deployed at very little additional cost if implemented simultaneously and in parallel with ongoing e-Governance service provision plans for all citizens. A compelling case is made that there is no excuse for governments not to invest additional modest resources required to ensure that e-Governance services are fully e-Accessible for people with disabilities. The report findings indicate that progress in implementing e-Accessibility across the countries of South Eastern Europe varies considerably.
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In general, little has been done in the area of television (subtitling, signing and audio description) beyond a main daily news bulletin that has been made accessible to those with hearing and sight difficulties, Croatia being an exception.
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The key driver in accessible telephony has usually been the requirement to become compliant with the the universal service aspects of the EU’s Telecommunications Directive, which have been implemented to differing degrees. However, the components related to people with disabilities are perhaps the least observed — such as lower connection fees and tariffs, and especially affordable assistive technologies and usable public telephony.
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ICT and Internet training for people with disabilities is not among the strongest commitments listed in international treaties. Thus, actions need to take place to ensure this happens, capitalizing on the fact that access is becoming widely available and is more affordable. At present, training and support for using ICTs and the Internet inside and