Funka awarded strategic assignment for the Finnish government
The European Web Accessibility Directive is going to be implemented in all European Member States no later than by September 2018. This means that countries with existing accessibility legislation need to harmonize to the new directive and that countries without legislation need to create new regulations to fit the national situation.
To support the Finnish Ministry of Finance who is responsible for the transposition in Finland, Funka has been assigned to make an international review of existing legislation and ongoing efforts in other European countries in a comparative study.
As a part of our work for the legislation proposal we need detailed and up-to-date information of WAD implementation in other countries. We believe this study helps us to get a broader view of WAD aspects, says Markus Rahkola, the chairman of the WAD implementation working group in Finland.
During the assignment, Funka will use our extensive European network of experts, contacts within government, industry, academia, end user organisations and standardization, to make interviews and surveys, as well as desktop research.
The detailed national implementation is essential to achieve inclusion, says Susanna Laurin, who will lead the assignment. We look forward to cooperating with the Finnish government in this important work.
The study will be performed during the autumn of 2017 and includes information on national level as well as comparision between eight countries when it comes to:
- policy work and guidelines
- regulations
- requirements and standards
- organization in charge of monitoring or supervision
- proposed structure of observatory under the Web Accessibility Directive
- any enforcement tools
- cost-benefit analyses and other economic reports