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Social protection programmes are increasingly being adopted in low- and middle-income countries as a set of strategies for poverty reduction, improving livelihoods and decreasing inequality. Due to high levels of poverty and social exclusion, people with disabilities – who comprise upwards of 15% of the global population – have been identified as a key target group for inclusion in social protection, in both international guidelines and in national strategies. However, there is currently a lack of evidence on whether these programmes are adequately reaching and meeting the needs of people with disabilities.

The aim of this research was to assess the extent to which social protection systems in Nepal and Vietnam address the needs of people with disabilities. This research uses a mixed methods approach, combining a national policy analysis with district-level qualitative and quantitative studies in each country

Children with disabilities experience very high levels of violence, according to this research from Plan International and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. The new study carried out in Uganda and Malawi provides valuable insights into the lives of children with disabilities. Key findings include: 

- Girls and boys with disabilities experience extremely high levels of violence: 84% of children with disabilities surveyed reported having experienced some form of violence at school in the previous week.
- Girls with disabilities were more likely to report emotional and sexual violence than girls without disabilities.
- Children with disabilities find it difficult to access community-based child protection mechanisms, due to a range of barriers including environmental barriers, social barriers and institutional barriers.

This extremely important piece of research shows that if we don’t explicitly include, we exclude. In line with the aspiration of the Sustainable Development Goals to “leave no one behind” and with the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, we therefore call upon Plan International and all other development actors to work together to stop the widespread violence against boys and girls with disabilities, and take concrete steps to include them in child protection mechanisms.

This report, formed of two parts, provides robust empirical basis to support the theorized disability-poverty link. The first section presents a systematic review of the literature on the relationship between disability and economic poverty. The second section explores the economic consequences of the exclusion and inclusion of people with disabilities in the areas of education, employment and health. The key pathways through which these economic costs may arise are discussed and studies that have attempted to quantify the financial impacts are reviewed

This report presents a summary of the findings of a study that developed and tested a best-practice population-based survey methodology to estimate the prevalence of disability in children and adults in India, and compared the extent to which people with and without disabilities access key mainstream services and opportunities including health, education and livelihoods in Telengana State, India

This report presents a summary of the findings of a study that developed and tested a best-practice population-based survey methodology to estimate the prevalence of disability in children and adults in Cameroon, and compared the extent to which people with and without disabilities access key mainstream services and opportunities including health, education and livelihoods in north west Cameroon

This research summary report presents of methodological recommendations for measuring disability in a comprehensive and comparable way

This report summarises a study that aimed to assess whether children with disabilities were included within humanitarian and food security response programmes and whether there was an association between disability and malnutrition. The fieldwork was conducted in 2013 in the Turkana region of Kenya, a region repeatedly classified as experiencing a humanitarian emergency, and used both qualitative and quantitative methods. The key finding of the report is that children with disabilities are more likely to be malnourished and the key recommendations are that children with disabilities should be targeted in food aid and food assistance programmes, and that further efforts are needed to include children with disabilities in education.  The report is intended for stakeholders to inform policy 

This seminar video the findings and recommendations from a four year CBM-funded project in Bangladesh and Pakistan to identify children with disabilities and connect them with appropriate rehabilitative services