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The WHO-UNICEF Global Report on Assistive Technology (AT) reveals that more than 2.5 billion people need one or more assistive products, such as wheelchairs, hearing aids, or apps that support communication and cognition. Yet nearly one billion of them are denied access, particularly in low- and middle-income countries, where access can be as low as 3% of the need for these life-changing products.

The Global Report provides the best available evidence about the barriers currently preventing access, how access can be improved, and how enabling environments and AT can enable persons with disabilities to enjoy their human rights while generating a tremendous return on investment for governments. The report also makes 10 key recommendations for concrete actions that will improve access to AT, for everyone, that needs them. 

Access to assistive technology for children with disabilities is often the first step for childhood development, access to education, participation in sports and civic life, and getting ready for employment like their peers. Children with disabilities have additional challenges due to their growth, which requires frequent adjustments or replacements of their assistive products.

IDA, UNICEF, and the Atlas Alliance, represented by Youth Mental Health Norway, co-hosted a Youth Summit on 14 February 2022 to ensure the inclusion of youth in the Global Disability Summit. 

All planning and decision making around the Summit were led by youth with disabilities, including through the design of a novel format to ensure the participation of youth from around the globe, from local to global.

The Summit showcased the innovations of organizations led by youth with disabilities. Youth with disabilities at the local, regional and global levels have created groups and activities, both online and offline, fostering a sense of community, even during the COVID-19 period. Through the Summit, the youth focused on topics that they have identified to be particularly important in this regard, such as participation of youth in OPDs and youth mainstream organizations, inclusive education, deinstitutionalization and community inclusion, access to employment, climate change, new technologies, humanitarian action, access to inclusive healthcare including sexual reproductive health and mental health, among others.

A working group consisting of co-hosts and selected partners was responsible for developing a Youth Charter for Change - summing up and challenging the commitments

As globalization continues to bring everyone and everything closer together, not all of the trade-offs are necessarily positive. As we export our unique cultures and experiences around the globe, we also increase the spread of chronic health problems.

For much of the 20th century, a person’s likelihood of developing a chronic health disease like type II diabetes depended on the wealth of the country they lived in equally as much as their own biology and genetic factors. In wealthy, developed countries, people are much more likely to survive to old age and eventually pass away from diseases of affluence — chronic diseases like cancer, heart disease, and diabetes that primarily impact the ageing population. In contrast, people living in developing nations are much more likely to experience malnourishment, violence, and communicable diseases that have a major impact on their overall health and quality of life.

This distinction has proven to be true across many developed countries, including globalization giants like the United States. Even in the more economically disadvantaged areas of America, hardly anyone dies as a result of communicable diseases like tuberculosis, a disease that is still a serious problem in lesser developed nations. Alternatively, in low to middle-income countries, these types of health concerns are still a going concern. Alongside the increased risk of encountering a communicable disease, people living in these areas are also at a higher risk for developing diseases of affluence such as type II diabetes. In this way, people living in developing nations are more likely to experience cancer while also battling cholera infections, and someone living with diabetes is also more likely to be struggling with chronic malnourishment. This lack of distinction between diseases of affluence and communicable diseases puts people living in developing nations at a disadvantage.

In this new global landscape of health and disease, the impact of diabetes is truly overwhelming. Since 1980, the number of people living with diabetes has almost doubled from 152 million to between 285-347 million (1). As a result of this dramatic increase, health spending and global costs have also had to increase to meet the growing demand for care. In 2019, it is estimated that diabetes caused over 760 billion USD in health expenditures, making up about 10% of all global spending on adults (2).

As the prevalence of diabetes continues to grow around the world, we need to shift our attention to finding global solutions to this invisible epidemic. Understanding the connection between obesity, globalization, and diabetes is a great starting point in order to tackle this ever-growing global health problem.

This Labour Market Assessment for Bangladesh is a refresh of the initial assessments done in 2019 for the Inclusion Works programme. The assessment adopts a Markets for Poor (M4P) approach to mapping demand for and supply of labour, supporting functions and regulatory frameworks; recognising that labour markets conditions will have evolved since 2019, especially in light of COVID-19. The perspectives of jobseekers, employers, and organisations of persons with disabilities (OPDs) are also included in this analysis. The report provides insights into market changes and recommendations to enable Inclusion Works programming to adapt and be more effective in their interventions.

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.

An overview of social protection measures announced in response to COVID-19 that have made specific reference to persons with disabilities. Rather than seeking to provide an exhaustive survey of measures, it identifies the main characteristics and trends for social protection responses that specifically sought to support persons with disabilities during the crisis. This brief focuses on specific crisis response measures adopted during the COVID-19 pandemic, acknowledging that persons with disabilities also benefited from access to health care and income support provided through pre-existing social protection schemes and programmes. The document provides an update to an initial analysis in May 2020 (UNPRPD, 2020).

This overview draws on a database of social protection measures specifically relating to disability, which is provided as an Annex to this paper. 

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.

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).

Employment contributes to well-being and dignity. Additionally, it can break the vicious cycle of poverty and the resulting negative mental health. However, nearly two-thirds of persons with disabilities aged 15 years and over are unemployed in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). The ratio of persons with disabilities in employment compared to the general population in employment is almost half. Furthermore, among people with disabilities who are employed, two-thirds continue to experience workplace barriers. Inequality and discrimination in employment deprive persons with disabilities of their rights. Goal 8 in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development explicitly calls for “promoting sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all.” The United Nations’ ‘Disability and Development’ report highlights the international frameworks relevant to optimize opportunities for persons with disabilities to participate in employment, to achieve Goal 8.  This brief will provide an overview of the available literature on LMICs’ efforts to promote inclusive employment underpinned by the UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities (UNCRPD) framework.