In a September ceremony at the United Nations, the Ecuadorian President Gustavo Noboa accepted the sixth annual Franklin Delano Roosevelt International Disability Award on behalf of his country. The Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute and the World Committee on Disability honored Ecuador for its progress on disability issues. The award is granted each year to a country that has made noteworthy progress toward the goal of the United Nations World Programme of Action Concerning Disabled Persons, which calls for the full and equal participation of disabled people in their societies. Ecuador revised its constitution in 1994 to guarantee access for people with disabilities to healthcare, education, training, and work.

The Franklin Delano Roosevelt International Disability Award includes a bust of FDR and $50,000 for an outstanding disability program in the designated country. This year, the cash award will go to the Foundation for the Psycho-Pedagogic Assistance for Children, Adolescents and Adults with Mental Retardation (FASINARM) in Ecuador. In addition, for the second consecutive year, Wheelchair Foundation founder Kenneth Behring has supplemented the award with a gift of 1,000 wheelchairs for the winning nation. Past recipients of the award have included the Republic of Korea, Canada, Ireland, Hungary, and Thailand.

Prominent speakers at the September award ceremony included: Madame Louise Fréchette, Deputy Secretary-General of the U.N.; Christopher Reeve, Vice Chairman of the National Organization on Disability; Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, Co-Chair of the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute and granddaughter of FDR; Kenneth Behring, Founder, Wheelchair Foundation; Ambassador William vanden Heuvel, Co-Chair of the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute; and Alan A. Reich, Chairman, World Committee on Disability.

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