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Global Report on Children with Developmental Disabilities: from the margins to the mainstream

WORLD HEALTH ORGANISATION (WHO)
UNITED NATIONS CHILDREN'S FUND (UNICEF)
September 2023

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This WHO-UNICEF Global Report is a call for action to intentionally include children and young people with developmental disabilities in renewed global and country level efforts to enable transformations towards the SDGs.  It proposes priority actions to accelerate individual-, family-, community-, and society-level changes to achieve inclusion and health equity. The report makes the case for greater investment and accountability to build inclusive and responsive multisectoral care systems for children and young people with developmental disabilities. Using findings from research and practice and guided by the tenets of international human rights conventions, the report provides key insights into the state of knowledge, policy, programming, and public monitoring in respect of developmental disabilities.

No tech about us, without us

SALELKAR, Amba (IDA)
BANDUDKA, Maryam (GDI hub)
OJOK, Banya (IDA)
September 2023

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Two short talks concerning the centering of assistive technology projects on persons with disabilities and organisation of persons with disabilities (OPD/DPO). The talks are presented by a representative from IDA in India and one from IDA in Uganda. The talks are introduced by Maryam Bandudka of GDI hub. Story telling, the CPRD, communities of practice and advocacy are mentionned

 

Presented at the Disability Innovation Summit: Inclusive Interactions conference organised by the GDI hub on 13 Sept 2023.

Listen Include Respect: International Guidelines for Inclusive Participation

Inclusion International
June 2022

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The Listen Include Respect guidelines help organisations understand what they need to do to make sure people with intellectual disabilities are included in their work.

​They were written by Inclusion International and Down Syndrome International.

Over 1,500 people with intellectual disabilities and their families from almost 100 countries helped write them.

The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) tells us that all people with disabilities have the right to “meaningful participation.”

“Meaningful participation” is what happens when people with intellectual disabilities get everything they need to be fully included, participate equally, and feel valued.

These guidelines will help organisations to make this happen.

Inclusive Design and Accessibility of the Built Environment in Solo, Indonesia

PATRICK, Michaela
McKINNON, Iain
PUTRI PRASTIKA, Kirana
ASTERINA, Nina
FUAD, Jamil
March 2022

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This case study builds a picture of the current state of inclusion and accessibility in the built environment and infrastructure in Solo, Indonesia, through engaging local stakeholders and communities and exploring the understanding of and potential for inclusive design to address some of the current barriers to inclusion.

Surakarta (known as Solo) is a city in Central Java, Indonesia, with a population of 557,606 people. The city has a strong history of inclusion, recognised as a great place for persons with disabilities in Indonesia to live. Solo city is a leader for inclusion in Indonesia, demonstrated through city regulations on disability inclusion that pre-date the ratification of the UNCRPD. There is great progress in implementing inclusive environments in Solo with numerous accessible infrastructures, but the city would benefit from a more holistic approach, support by a robust inclusive design strategy that integrates inclusion, sustainable and resilience to ensure long-term progress. One of the aspects that makes Solo unique is its strong community relationships, community-led approaches and leadership from the community is active and valued. This is also supported within urban governance, facilitating opportunities from grassroots leadership and inclusive participation for persons with disabilities.

The research identified that to create more inclusive environments, the physical infrastructure, planning and design is crucial, but equally important are the processes of inclusion and participation. Creating robust mechanisms of community participation and leadership is fundamental to ensure long term sustainable and continued progress to being a more inclusive city.

Across Indonesia, action towards inclusive cities is supported through the work of the Inclusive Mayor’s Network in Indonesia demonstrating country-wide leadership. The findings of this case study will serve Solo as a city but also have relevance for other cities across Indonesia and support the implementation of best practices found in Solo. 

This is the third of six case studies of the Inclusive Infrastructure programme analysing the state of accessibility and inclusive design in low-resource contexts around the world. 

Towards a disability-inclusive humanitarian response in South Sudan?

FUNKE, Carolyn
DIJKZEUL, Dennis
February 2022

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The Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) Guidelines on the Inclusion of Persons with Disabilities in Humanitarian Action (2019) set out four ‘must do’ actions to identify and respond to the needs and rights of persons with disabilities. This study investigates how humanitarian organizations implement the four ‘must do’ actions in South Sudan. It shows that mainstream and inclusion-focused organizations actively promote their implementation to make disability inclusion an integral part of humanitarian action, investing heavily in capacity-building and awareness-raising at all levels of the response. Nevertheless, serious gaps and challenges to disability inclusion remain. 

Engagement with Organizations of Persons with Disabilities. Learning about meaningful engagement in public health emergencies, including COVID-19

UNITED NATIONS CHILDREN'S FUND (UNICEF)
December 2021

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This report was produced under a United Nations Partnership on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNPRPD) project to support countries in designing and implementing disability-inclusive response and recovery planning for COVID-19. Throughout this project, UNICEF documented examples of good practice and learnings from partnerships with organizations of people with disabilities (OPDs) in public health emergencies, including COVID-19. The objectives of this initiative were to gain a better understanding of the factors that facilitate effective partnerships between humanitarian actors and local, regional, and national OPDs, and the challenges to be addressed.

This report presents the findings from a ‘deep dive’ undertaken by UNICEF East Asia and the Pacific Regional Office to consider the experiences in Cambodia, Indonesia, the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines and the Pacific. The target audience for this report includes OPDs and humanitarian actors at global, regional, and country levels.

A Global Agenda for Inclusive Recovery: Ensuring People with Intellectual Disabilities and Families are Included in a Post-COVID World

Inclusion International
June 2021

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This report documents the experience of exclusion of people with intellectual disabilities and their families during the COVID-19 pandemic. These experiences reveal pre-existing structural inequalities that affected the lives of people with intellectual disabilities and their families before COVID-19, during the pandemic, and beyond, and this report raises up the voices of those most excluded in a time of global crisis and demands an inclusive COVID-19 recovery.

 

This report includes the experiences of people with intellectual disabilities and families across eight different issue areas. Across these themes, we examined how and why people with intellectual disabilities were left out and excluded in pandemic responses, what pre-existing conditions and inequalities contributed to their vulnerability and exclusion, and how future policy structures could begin to address both this immediate and systemic exclusion.

 

Together, these experiences and policy solutions form our global agenda for inclusive COVID-19 recovery, an action plan to ensure that government efforts to ‘build back better’ are inclusive of people with intellectual disabilities and their families.

Vihiga county disability-inclusive budget tracking

DEVELOPMENT INITIATIVES
June 2021

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This briefing tracks the inclusivity of Vihiga county budgets from financial years (FY) 2016–17 to 2020–21 towards persons with disabilities. It begins with an overview of disability prevalence in the county, then looks at county investments in disability inclusion. It concludes by looking at the critical financial gaps in the disability sector and providing actionable recommendations to be taken up by both the county government and disabled persons organisations (DPOs).

Trans Nzoia county disability-inclusive budget tracking

DEVELOPMENT INITIATIVES
June 2021

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This is part of a series of briefings that track the disability inclusivity of county budgets. In this briefing, we present the inclusivity of Trans Nzoia County budgets towards persons with disabilities between financial years (FY) 2016–17 and 2020–21. It should be noted that this briefing has utilised data from only three FYs, as opposed to five as planned, due to the unavailability of budget data. The three FYs with available budget data are FY2017–18, FY2018–19 and FY2020–21. For the two FYs without budget data, we have used projections from the previous years.

Kakamega county disability-inclusive budget tracking

DEVELOPMENT INITIATIVES
June 2021

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This briefing tracks the inclusivity of Kakamega county budgets towards persons with disabilities from financial year (FY) 2016–17 to 2020–21. It begins with an overview of disability prevalence in the county, and then looks at county investments on disability inclusion. It concludes by looking at the critical financial gaps in the disability sector and providing actionable recommendations to be taken up by both the county government and persons with disabilities.

Bungoma county disability-inclusive budget tracking

DEVELOPMENT INITIATIVES
June 2021

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This briefing presents research that was undertaken as part of Development Initiatives’ work on data to support disability inclusion. It is part of a series of publications that track disability inclusion in county budgets in Kenya. This briefing looks at the inclusivity of Bungoma county budgets towards persons with disabilities between the financial years (FY) 2016–17 and 2020–21. It begins with an overview of the disability prevalence rate in the county, then looks at county investments towards disability inclusion. It concludes by outlining the critical financial gaps in the disability sector and provides actionable recommendations for both the county government and disabled persons organisations (DPOs).

Busia county disability-inclusive budget tracking

DEVELOPMENT INITIATIVES
June 2021

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This briefing tracks the inclusivity of Busia county budgets from financial years (FY) 2016–17 to 2020–21 towards persons with disabilities. It begins with an overview of disability prevalence in the county, and then looks at county investments in disability inclusion. It concludes by looking at the critical financial gaps in the disability sector and providing actionable recommendations to be taken up by both the county government and disabled persons organisations (DPOs).

A global agenda for inclusive recovery: Ensuring people with intellectual disabilities and families are Included in a post-COVID world

INCLUSION INTERNATIONAL
May 2021

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This report documents the experiences of people with intellectual disabilities and their families during COVID-19 and proposes a global agenda for inclusive COVID recovery developed by Inclusion International’s membership. The global agenda is a set of imperatives for policy and programming to ensure that “building back better” creates a more inclusive world.

Combatting the costs of exclusion for children with disabilities and their families

MONT, Daniel
UNICEF
March 2021

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Compared with other children, children with disabilities are less likely to receive an education, less likely to be employed as adults, more likely to be victims of violence, less likely to start their own families and participate in community events, and more likely to live in poverty. 

The exclusion of children with disabilities affects not only them, but imposes costs on the whole community. If these children lack the opportunity to be productive, society loses out on what they could have produced.  The barriers faced by people with disabilities can also create more responsibilities for their family members, which can limit their opportunities to work or get an education.

Moreover, the impact of exclusion extends beyond the economic cost. If people with disabilities are absent from public discourse, the community cannot benefit from their ideas. If they are excluded from political participation, the government cannot truly represent the interests of all citizens. 

A growing body of research suggests that the costs of exclusion are high. Fortunately, evidence also demonstrates that there are effective ways to ameliorate these costs. A strong case can be made for the social and economic benefits of inclusion. This paper is an effort to begin making that case.

 

Persons with disabilities and their representative organisations in Iraq

March 2021

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Iraq has one of the largest populations of persons with disabilities in the world. Despite this, there has been little consultation among persons with disabilities and their representative groups by government and humanitarian and development agencies. Persons with disabilities and their representative organisations in Iraq: Barriers, challenges and priorities aims to improve the understanding of the barriers experienced by persons with disabilities, including the key challenges and priorities of their rep­resentative organizations, in order to inform humanitarian and development programming. The report is based on interviews conducted with 81 representatives of 53 Organiza­tions of persons with disabilities across 18 governorates in Iraq.

Persons with disabilities and their representative organisations in Iraq

INTERNATIONAL ORGANISATION FOR MIGRATION (IOM) IRAQ
March 2021

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Iraq has one of the largest populations of persons with disabilities in the world. Despite this, there has been little consultation among persons with disabilities and their representative groups by government and humanitarian and development agencies. Persons with disabilities and their representative organisations in Iraq: Barriers, challenges and priorities aims to improve the understanding of the barriers experienced by persons with disabilities, including the key challenges and priorities of their rep­resentative organizations, in order to inform humanitarian and development programming. The report is based on interviews conducted with 81 representatives of 53 Organiza­tions of persons with disabilities across 18 governorates in Iraq.

Psychosocial Consequences of COVID-19 on Persons with Visual Impairments

NAYAR, Mahima
JUVVA, Srilatha
LAKSHMAN, Chitra
2021

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The ongoing pandemic situation has disrupted lives globally. These disruptions are embodied in gender, social location, ethnicity and in the body. Public health facilities, accessibility of urban infrastructure, support services for persons with disability, educational accessibility in cities prior to the pandemic have influenced the manner in which disabled people are able to adapt to the current situation. This paper presents the experiences of young people living with visual impairments who reside in an urban low-income community in India. It explores the unique challenges such as the further reduction in accessibility to health and educational facilities that they are facing and the manner in which their carefully structured everyday lives have changed. The narratives also describe the manner in which they are coping with the public health disaster in addition to preparing for the new ‘norms’ that people living with visual impairments are required to navigate as an outcome of the pandemic. The paper gives voice to their needs and requirements in this situation, and in turn, aims to inform policy responses through first person accounts. 

Disability Inclusion and Global Development: A Preliminary Analysis of the United Nations Partnership on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities programme within the context of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the Sustainable

WESCOTT, H N
MACLACHLAN, M
MANNAN, H
2021

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Purpose: This paper provides a preliminary snapshot of the proposed priorities approved by the United Nations programme designated to support the progressive realisation of the CRPD, the United Nations Partnership on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNPRPD) outlined by specific Convention Articles and, more broadly, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

 

Method:A content analysis of project proposal summaries approved for funding by the UNPRPD was conducted against the CRPD and SDGs. A matrix of data was produced to draw links between proposed objectives and established international frameworks guiding global development.

 

Results:This analysis provides two sets of information. First, a look at the distribution of rights identified in the initial project proposals and accepted by the UNPRPD, establishing a baseline of priorities and outstanding need. Second, it identifies issues that need to be addressed to ensure the advancement of all rights outlined in the CRPD and equitable achievement of the SDGs.

 

Conclusion and Implications:Disability inclusion is necessary to achieve the SDGs in an equitable manner by 2030, as well as implement the CRPD. The UNPRPD supports a diverse range of projects spanning many of the Convention Articles and global goals; however, full participation and scope of disability inclusion requires programming in all areas of both instruments, and this has not yet been fully integrated in the UNPRPD funded project proposals.

 

Limitations: This study was limited to the available UNPRPD project proposal summaries that were successful, and did not include all the proposals submitted for consideration. The proposals accepted for funding give insights into the disability inclusive development priorities chosen for project implementation by UN agencies.

People with Physical Disabilities playing Light Volleyball: A Qualitative Study in Hong Kong

Leung, Ka Man
Chu, William
Wong, Ming-Yu
2020

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Purpose: This study aimed at understanding the perceptions of people with physical disabilities regarding playing Light Volleyball (LVB), identifying the possible constraints and risks they might face while playing, and providing their suggestions for fine-tuning the Light Volleyball intervention programmes.

 

Method: Four focus group interviews were conducted with 17 participants who joined the Light Volleyball trial programme. The participants were 11 males and 6 females, with an average age of 53.5 years (SD=11.83 years). People with poliomyelitis (n = 15), spinal cord injury (n = 1), hearing impairment (n = 1) were included.

 

Results: Participants indicated improved reactivity and coordination, cooperation in team, happiness, and novelty in general as positive outcomes while playing Light Volleyball. They preferred to play in the seated position (i.e., sitting light volleyball - SLVB), and with simpler rules. They believed that their ability to play Light Volleyball was subject to their body constraints.

 

Conclusion: Sitting Light Volleyball can be one of the new physical activity options for future sport promotion among people with physical disabilities in the community. The effectiveness of playing Sitting Light Volleyball in enhancing health among people with physical disabilities needs to be studied in future.

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