Australia in Switzerland
Bern and Geneva
Switzerland, Liechtenstein

Statement271

Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons
Protocol V on Explosive Remnants of War
Fifth Conference of High Contracting Parties
VICTIM ASSISTANCE

Statement by Mr Philip Kimpton
First Secretary, Australian Permanent Mission

10 November 2011

Thank you Madam Coordinator and Madam Friend of the Coordinator
 

We appreciate your hard work this year on the issue of victim assistance, including for the concrete steps forward such as the establishment of the dedicated webpage on victim assistance.
 

Thank you to the WHO for its presentation today on the World Report on Disability. The presentation pointed to the relevance and usefulness of the Report's recommendations for our collective work on victim assistance and implementing the Plan of Action.
 

Australia had the pleasure of serving with Uganda in 2011 as Co-Chair of the Standing Committee on Victim Assistance under the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention. The Standing Committee and our work here in Protocol V share many of the same objectives, including: promoting inclusion of survivors; supporting access to quality services; non-discrimination; and strengthening data gathering. There is much we can learn from other bodies, such as the Standing Committee, and their work on developing principles and standards on victim assistance. We encourage the Coordinators to engage with such discussions in other bodies in relevant treaties in the coming year.
 

Australia’s work on disability-inclusive development is guided by our strategy, “Development for All: Towards a Disability-Inclusive Australian Aid Program”. The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities provides the guiding framework for the Development for All strategy. Developed following an extensive consultation process, the strategy employs a twin-track approach: both to mainstream disability inclusive processes throughout Australia’s aid program as well as to support necessary disability specific activities. We also adopt this approach in our assistamce for survivors where we both support more general improvements to social and health services benefitting a wide range of people, as well as specifically targeted projects to assist victims of ERW.
 

Madam Coordinator
 

Australia supports the recommendations in your paper. We encourage all States Parties to advance our discussions and consultations so that we might be in a position to adopt an amended form F to the national reporting template at the Sixth Conference in 2012.
 

Thank you.