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This report presents the findings from a rapid global survey of persons with disabilities and other stakeholders which took place between April and August 2020. The organisations behind the study seek to “catalyse urgent action in the weeks and months to come,” as transmission rates of COVID-19 continue to rise in many countries and persons with disabilities are again subjected to restrictions which have already had severe consequences.

The report analyses over 2,100 responses to the survey from 134 countries around the world. The vast majority of responses were from individuals with disabilities and their family members. Within the questionnaire responses respondents provided more than 3,000 written testimonies documenting the experiences of persons with disabilities and their family members during the pandemic. The qualitative and quantitative data provide in-depth, comprehensive insights into the experiences of persons with disabilities and the consequences of government actions or inactions on the rights of persons with disabilities.

The report is organised around four themes which emerged during the process of analysing responses received to the survey. These themes are:

1. Inadequate measures to protect persons with disabilities in institutions

2. Significant and fatal breakdown of community supports

3. Disproportionate impact on underrepresented groups of persons with disabilities

4. Denial of access to healthcare

A webinar was held to mark the launch of the report

These recommendations provide guidance on how to ensure more inclusive and effective implementation of Citizen Generated Data (CGD) initiatives and partnerships that engage communities effectively, and especially young people, persons with disabilities and civil rights defenders.

The recommendations focus on:

Inclusive Partnerships and Effective Collaboration including a "Spotlight from Uganda: Using WG questions in the national census"

Data Access and Disaggregation including a "Spotlight from Madagascar: Youth generated data and accountability"

Resourcing and Funding including a "Spotlight from International Non Government Organisations: Using Washington Group Questions (WGQ) in humanitarian and development settings"

As governments respond to the Coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, the global community must ensure that persons with disabilities are included. This will require disability inclusion to be considered in all interconnected sectors; education, health, social protection, and inclusion from the planning stage all the way through to delivery and recovery efforts that are inclusive of all and are sufficiently differentiated to meet the specific needs of children with disabilities. The issues paper focuses on the following objectives: (1) addressing education, social needs, barriers, and issues for learners with disabilities at a global, regional, and country-level during the COVID-19 crisis; and (2) recommending practices for education and social inclusion, and reasonable accommodations utilizing the twin track approach and principles of universal design for learning.

This report is based on the results of a global survey conducted in March and April 2020, targeted at the personal experiences of women, girls, non-binary, trans, and gender non-conforming persons with disabilities and COVID-19. This survey, which was intended to be primarily qualitative, asked respondents to provide narrative information about the following topics: access to health services, including sexual and reproductive health services; rationing of healthcare; personal safety and violence; access to support services to meet daily living needs; and access to education, employment, and other income. The results are based on 100 respondents. Recommendations are given.

Aim: Many children with disabilities in low- and middle-income countries do not attend school and one-third are out of school. In order to ensure that education is for all including children with disabilities, research is needed on barriers to schooling to identify targets for intervention. The study will examine the determinants of school achievement among persons with and without disabilities as well as among each type of impairment.

Methods: The study will utilize data from a recent national, representative household survey on living conditions among persons with and without disabilities. The individual level data used in this article comprise 2123 persons with and 2000 persons without disabilities.

Results: The results show that an alarmingly high proportion of persons in Nepal have not accessed formal education, with access being significantly lower among persons with disabilities. While the results may be influenced by the assumed relationship between disability and poverty, results from analyzing the cross-sectional data cannot be conclusive on the influence of disability vs. poverty in determining differences in access and school attainments. Increased environmental barriers, higher age, rural location, and increased levels of disability were found to be associated with lower educational achievement. Pronounced differences in access to education were found between impairment types, with individuals with physical impairments achieving the highest level and individuals with multiple impairments, hearing and mental impairments achieving lowest.

Conclusions: It is necessary both to strengthen the entire educational sector and at the same time allocate resources that will ensure that all children are on board and that particular efforts are implemented to cater for those who are easily side-lined.

Purpose: This survey aimed to assess the baseline level of access to social institutions, utilisation of civil facilities and participation in empowerment schemes by people with disabilities in Amravati district of Maharashtra State, India.

Method: Sixty villages from two blocks in Amravati district were randomly selected for the survey. From these villages, 522 households were sampled and 3056 individuals were surveyed. Interviews were conducted with 590 individuals with disability from among the surveyed population. The structured interview schedule consisted of demographic data, access to social organisations, utilisation of civil services, and participation in empowerment schemes. 

Results: Locomotor disability was the most prevalent (44.6%) type of disability in the study area. Disabilities were more often present among male adolescents and young adults than among the older population and females. Over 50% of the study participants had no occupation (including children and students) and had not been to school. Only 48% had achieved secondary education and more. The proportion of disability among people belonging to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes was considerably higher than among the general population. Access to social institutions was less than 50% for most of the items, and was even lower among females. Except for the ration card and Aadhar card, civil services were generally under-utilised by people with disability. Only 3.2% of the participants were members of self-help groups, and not a single person was a member of the Disabled People’s Organisation.

Conclusions:  In the study area access to social institutions, utilisation of civil services and participation in empowerment schemes was very low.

Limitations: Data, including general socio-demographic, access and utility data, was not collected for the general population but was limited to people with disabilities. This restricted the scope for comparison between people with and without disabilities.

Disability, CBR and Inclusive Development, Vol 30, No 1 (2019)

Four factsheets concerned with Washington Group Questions (WGQ) produced in conjunction with the Disability Data in Humanitarian Action programme.

Aspects addressed are: collecting data at the household level; collecting data on persons with mental health difficulties and understanding temperality and causality when using the WGQs.

Aim:  A cluster randomized cross-sectional survey to assess the prevalence of disability and access to support services was conducted in Albay Province, the Philippines in April 2016.

Method:  The population-based survey methodologies developed by the Washington Group of the United Nations Statistical Commission and UNICEF were utilized.  A sample of 70 barangays (the 3rd level administrative division in the Philippines) was selected as clusters, with probability proportional to size, and 30 households were selected randomly in each barangay to be surveyed.

Results:  The estimated prevalence of disability using the standard criteria of the Washington Group and UNICEF among children (2-17 years old) was 2.0% and for adults (≥18 years old) it was 6.5%.  The estimated prevalence of disability was higher in rural than in urban areas.  Deficiencies in the performance of existing services were identified; access by children with disabilities to support services was lowest in rural highland and rural plain barangays.

Conclusions: There was a large unmet demand for support services addressing the needs of persons with disabilities in Albay Province, especially in rural highland areas.  Persons with disabilities were disadvantaged in access to education and employment; many had not been educated in their basic rights.

Implications:  To identify, educate and fully support persons with disabilities, community-based rehabilitation (CBR), health and other rehabilitation services must communicate effectively with each other, their current work should be mapped and analysed, their comparative strengths identified, and their future work coordinated.  It is a priority to educate persons with disabilities and their families about their rights, and facilitate their access to support services; this requires increased investment in communication targeting persons with disabilities and the communities, especially rural.  Providers caring for persons with disabilities need to work in partnership to identify unreached persons with disabilities.  Prevalence surveys, with stronger focus on the profiles and performance of CBR and related services, would add to the evidence-base to improve the quality and coverage of services for persons with disabilities.

Purpose: In low- and middle-income countries, reliable and disaggregated disability data on prevalence, participation and barriers is often not available. This study aimed to estimate disability prevalence, determine associated socio-demographic factors and compare access in the community between people with and without disability in Dehradun district of Uttarakhand, India, using the Rapid Assessment of Disability Survey.

Methods: A cross-sectional population-based survey was conducted on a sample of 2431 adults, selected using a two-stage cluster randomised sampling technique. The survey comprised an interviewer-administered household survey and an individual survey measuring disability, wellbeing and participation.  For each person with disability, an age and sex-matched control (without disability) was selected. In addition to prevalence, the difference in participation and barriers faced by people with and without disability were analysed.

Results and Conclusions: The prevalence of disability was 6.8% (95% CI 5.8-7.8) with significant associations with age, sex, economic status, education and employment. Psychosocial distress (4.8%) and mobility impairment (2.7%) were the most common disabilities identified. The study showed that people with disabilities had significantly less access to services than those without disability, and the barriers reported most often were lack of information, transport and physical inaccessibility.