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The 2030 and Counting pilot project sought to give youth with disabilities a seat at the table on the SDGs – providing them with the tools and confidence they need to become their own agents of change. This report provides an overview of the project, together with learnings and recommendations for the future.

In its pilot year, 2030 and Counting brought together young women and men with disabilities and DPOs from Kenya, the Philippines and Zambia to report on and advocate for their rights through the framework of the SDGs

The project had three consecutive phases: Training, Story gathering (data collection) and Influencing. 

In total, 332 reports were collected between June and September 2018. The highest number of reports were submitted under the theme of Education (44%), followed by Work (33%), and Health (14%). The category of Other, which almost entirely focused on discrimination in daily life, accounted for 8%. 80% of reporters had smartphones, offering the potential to increase the use of this feature in future.
 

Background identification of children at risk of developmental delay and/or impairment requires valid measurement of early child development (ECD). ECD measurement tools were systematically assessed for accuracy and feasibility for use in routine services in low income and middle-income countries (LMIC).

Building on World Bank and peer-reviewed literature reviews, available ECD measurement tools for children aged 0–3 years used in ≥1 LMIC were identified and matrixed according to when (child age) and what (ECD domains) they measure at population or individual level. Tools measuring <2 years and covering ≥3 developmental domains, including cognition, were rated for accuracy and feasibility criteria using a rating approach derived from Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development and Evaluations

Disability studies and the medical humanities have recently garnered increasing attention from academics interested in challenging modern, biological understandings of health and illness that dehumanize and alienate people with disabilities and those who are ill. While these discourses have much to contribute to the understanding of human diversity, including the study of race and ethnicity, the risk of conflating illness, disability, and historical forms of systemic discrimination remains a point of concern. As a black Martinican, clinician, and philosopher, Frantz Fanon draws our attention to the importance of healing the physical, affective, and epistemological wounds of coloniality by attending to the social relations that produce them. Fanon exposes the limits of hegemonic epistemologies of the body, raising the question of what other kinds of knowledge about health and illness are likewise excluded by the coloniality of knowledge. Theorizing the clinic as an important location from which revolutionary thought can emerge, I provide a decolonial framework for understanding how a sustained encounter between critical race and disability studies can generate new conceptions of health and healing that requires thinking about a different kind of pain and suffering not captured by the current rubric but to which we, in the twenty-first century, must nevertheless attend.

Disability & the Global South (DGS), 2019, Vol. 6 No. 1

Between 2015 and 2017, Plan International Mozambique worked together with communities supporting 106 preschools in rural Mozambique. In late 2016, an approach was piloted in 18 community-based preschools to support them to be disability-inclusive. The overall goal was to increase the number of children with disabilities enrolled in Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) centres delivering quality early learning opportunities. The pilot took place over a 12 month period. Summarised findings about the current status of inclusion in preschool programmes run by Plan International Mozambique, case studies and lessons learned about the inclusion of children with disabilities in these programmes are provided.  

They describe five aspects that need to be considered to remove barriers and ensure that children with disabilities can access and benefit from early childhood education:

1. Work directly with the parents of children with disabilities

2. Address individual physical and medical needs of children with disabilities

3. Build the skills and confidence of caretakers

4. Equip and build a strong implementing team

5. Build evidence on what is happening and what (doesn’t) work

This leaflet intends to underline the existence of intersectional factors of vulnerability amongst Women with Disabilities with respect to HIV/AIDS and sexual violence in Burkina Faso and Guinea Bissau. The figures presented here are taken from two studies carried out in Burkina Faso and Guinea Bissau in 2017. In Burkina Faso, 28,667 people were interviewed in total, among whom 978 identified themselves as persons with disabilities (using the Washington Group Short Set of Questions). For the biobehavioral study in Guinea Bissau, 17,110 people were interviewed in total, among whom 1,147 identified themselves as persons with disabilities

This report considers the progress being made to achieve older people's right to health amid the global drive towards universal health coverage. It explores how older people are currently accessing health services and what changes need to be made to improve on this. It considers the role of data in driving and informing changes to health systems and the services they deliver. Data must be collected with and about older people to ensure adequate evidence for service design and delivery that is targeted and appropriate. This report explores the adequacy of current data systems and collection mechanisms and how, alongside health systems, they must be adapted in an ageing world. 

This report is supported by 12 country profiles (for Argentina, Colombia, El Salvador, Kenya, Lebanon, Moldova, Myanmar, Pakistan, Serbia, Tanzania, Vietnam and Zimbabwe; see Appendix 1). These provide national information on trends in the physical and mental health status of older people, and population-level information on access to UHC. The profiles are supplemented by data mapping, showing the national data available on older people’s health in the 12 profile countries, and revealing the data gaps. The data mapping results are available at www.GlobalAgeWatch.org.

This paper interrogates how school toilets and ‘school readiness’ are used to assess children against developmental milestones. Such developmental norms both inform school toilet design and practice, and perpetuate normative discourses of childhood as middle-class, white, ‘able’, heteronormative, cissexist and inferior to adulthood. Critical psychology and critical disability studies frame our analysis of conversations from online practitioner forums. We show that school toilets and the norms and ideals of ‘toilet training’ act as one device for Othering those who do not fit into normative Western discourses of ‘childhood’. Furthermore, these idealised discourses of ‘childhood’ reify classed, racialised, gendered and dis/ablist binaries of good/bad parenting. We conclude by suggesting new methodological approaches to school toilet research which resist perpetuating developmental assumptions and prescriptions. In doing this, the paper is the first to explicitly bring school toilet research into the realms of critical psychology and critical disability studies.

The Eastern Mediterranean Region (EMR) is witnessing an increase in chronic disorders, including mental illness. With ongoing unrest, this is expected to rise. This is the first study to quantify the burden of mental disorders in the EMR. Data was used from the Global Burden of Disease study (GBD) 2013. DALYs (disability-adjusted life years) allow assessment of both premature mortality (years of life lost–YLLs) and nonfatal outcomes (years lived with disability–YLDs). DALYs are computed by adding YLLs and YLDs for each age-sex-country group.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0169575

Introduction: Humanitarian crises continue to pose a significant threat to health; the United Nations estimates that 144 million people are directly affected by conflict or environmental disasters. During most humanitarian crises, surgical and rehabilitative interventions remain a priority.

Objectives: This review assessed the quality of evidence that informs injury and physical rehabilitation interventions in humanitarian crises.

Methods: Peer-reviewed and grey literature sources were assessed in a systematic manner. Selected papers were evaluated using quality criteria based on a modified version of the STROBE protocol.

Results: 46 papers met the inclusion criteria. 63 % of the papers referred to situations of armed conflict, of which the Yugoslav Wars were the most studied crisis context. 59 % of the studies were published since the year 2000. However, only two studies were considered of a high quality.

Conclusions: While there is now a greater emphasis on research in this sector, the volume of evidence remains inadequate given the growing number of humanitarian programmes worldwide. Further research is needed to ensure a greater breadth and depth of understanding of the most appropriate interventions in different settings.

International Journal of Public Health, Vol 60