Accessibility and Universal design in Developing Economies: Mexico as an ExampleTaide Buenfil, Architect, Presidencia de la Republica, Mexico The national program for accessibility in Mexico, has been developed with the participation of every sector involved, federal and local government, NGOs, the academic, private, construction and transportation sector. The history of this result has been since the NGOs of disabled persons for more than 30 years have been working to promote the rights of every person, and this made the Mexican government to become a part of this movement. The example of Mexico, a developing country that for the last 3 years, has been implementing programs for accessibility and began with the resolution which establishes the regulation for accessibility for disabled persons to federal buildings, it is important to mention, that such document, began as a program for accessibility by voluntary political desire of the President Fox that it has been transformed into a civil obligation that will gradually be enforced and applied. This gives the opportunity to continue working with official standards for every other built space that gives service to people, with or without disability and to promote this culture into every sector of the society; also, housing is another kind of problem to solve, because in developing economies, where the housing is needed and accessibility has the need to become a regular way of designing, but without any additional cost of space or construction. That is why the program of accessibility has to include every ministry that has the obligation to care for a special right into the economic, social and political life of every person, including disabled. The expectation for the future is to have a country that will include, on one hand, disable people, elderly and children; but on the other hand, we have to include the vulnerary group, that are mentioned in the Human Rights laws, like natives, women, poverty, people with different diseases and people confined in different institutions. (Psychiatric or penitentiary institutions) It is of paramount importance in developing economies to introduce Universal Design bringing the solution to both subjects, Accessibility (technical measures) and the philosophy of inclusion (Universal Design). First of all, the Universal Design concept has to be used according to the people you are trying to get involved, by these we need to analyze to whom the concept is going to be exposed. To society and students you have to talk about the culture of diversity, to government, by democracy and human rights and to architects and designers by the design concept of standard of quality, accessibility, long lives, ecology and transcendence of the products. All of this is resuming in a SOCIETY OF INCLUSION and DIVERSITY, in accordance to the factor of ACCEPTANCE. In Countries where the government has limited budget, we have to get the knowledge and bring the concept by education; the government needs to use all the support from Universities and society, to begin making the real change. Proving the economic benefits that this will bring, and under the circumstance make programs together, that will benefit the society, by giving more than what it needs, by co-ordinate the INDIVIDUAL needs (specific) and the GENERAL needs (inclusion). In the time of the Presentation, the importance and how to promote the concept of Universal Design in developing economies will be expose, then, the example of Mexico will be shown as a program and the planning for getting the objective, and at last, the importance of including every sector in this process, so it is important to talk of some interesting local programs that have been done in the past with the support of NGOs, academic and private sector. The discussion will be stimulated, when we try to find if this is a way for working in developing economies and if the traditions and culture of others will apply. |