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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.

Background: The purpose of this study was to explore the psychological well-being of adolescents with physical disabilities living in inclusive community settings of Makonde Urban in Zimbabwe. An inclusive community is one that aims to remove exclusionary practices within the community and promote community systems that accept all people irrespective of their difference. Inclusive communities on their own are not uniquely designed for people with disabilities, but most developing countries have adopted them as a basic strategy to influence and enhance psychological well-being of people with disabilities.

Methods: A constructivist lived experience perspective underpinned this research, in which multiple case studies were used to interact with the participants on inclusion and psychological well-being of adolescents with physical disabilities. Purposive sampling was used to select 14 participants (9 males and 5 females). Data were collected through face-to-face interviews and transcribed verbatim. Four themes emerged from the thematic analysis of data sources.

Results: It was found that participants who were adolescents with physical disabilities living in inclusive community settings of Makonde Urban in Zimbabwe were having high levels of autonomy and choice, purpose in life, positive relations with others and good personal growth and self-acceptance.

Conclusion: The findings of this study should enable inclusive communities’ policy-makers and researchers to better understand the psychological well-being of adolescents with physical disabilities living in inclusive communities.

Purpose: This study assesses the factors that influence the wellbeing of caregivers and their children with a disability, in a rural and an urban site in Ghana. The wellbeing of parents, not surprisingly, influences the wellbeing of their children. A better understanding of the role and challenges faced by parents in caring for their child with a disability will help to improve existing services and support for children with disability.

Methods: Twenty-five parents of children with different disabilities participated in a PhotoVoice study. Photographs taken by parents, to show the challenges they experienced in childcare, were explained and discussed during focus group discussions. The Cantril Ladder was used to discuss subjective wellbeing.

Results: The photographs and discussions with parents indicated that the extensive time spent on their child, the child’s poor health status, and lack of educational opportunities had a negative influence on the wellbeing of both parent and child. Parents struggle to earn an income to provide for a child with disability. This often causes them to sink into (even deeper) poverty, and further increases the challenge to provide the (specific) care that a child with disability needs.

Conclusions and Implications: If governments, non-governmental organisations and community-based organisations want to contribute to the wellbeing of children with disability, they should be aware of the immediate context of the child, namely the family, and of the specific needs of the parents. Since the wellbeing of parents can affect the wellbeing of the child, and a child with disability may often cause further poverty in the family, relieving parents from some of the demands of childcare could help them to generate income, to the ultimate benefit of the entire family. Organisations working for children with a disability should actively involve parents of these children in designing and implementing interventions.

This study identifies and summarises evidence of the impact of non-accessible infrastructure on people with disabilities. It makes recommendations on how to incorporate the principals of universal access into all infrastructure projects. This document should be read in combination with the DFID (UK Department for International Development)​ Disability Framework “Leaving No One behind” (2014), which sets out how DFID promotes inclusion of people living with disabilities in all its programmes. Topics covered include: rationale for inclusive infrastructure; best practices in project planning, engineering design; monitoring and evaluation processes; inclusive design in planning and policy; mainstreaming disability considerations into infrastructure programmes and policy decisions; linking disabilities with cross cutting agendas. 

“This study reviews the literature on the meaning and impact of the right to adequate housing for persons with disabilities in cities. It uses the foundational framework of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), and demonstrates how the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) provides a new understanding of this complex right”

Adequate Housing Series

"The report summarizes the current Disaster Risk Management (DRM) situation in Mongolia and draws conclusions based on initial scoping assessments of the advisor. These observations underpin recommendations for further strategic policy and programme development in the country consistent with Government interests and through United Nations and wider international organizations’ involvement to strengthen the DRM and specifically disaster risk reduction (DRR) capacities of the institutional mechanisms, policies and regulatory frameworks in Mongolia. The author has based his analysis on present circumstances in the subject area since 2005, and it is projected from current conditions and suggested trends at the present time forward to anticipated needs and conditions up to 2020"

This paper aims ..."to assess whether the government of Andhra Pradesh is giving sufficient priority to investment in children at the state and the sub-state levels, through both rural and urban local bodies, to ensure improved outcomes for children"

"This paper develops a series of arguments regarding the contribution of social movements to the reduction of chronic poverty in both urban and rural social contexts...The summary is divided into three sections addressing: the relevance of social movements to the chronically poor; social movements and the representation of the chronically poor; and the interaction between the state and movements of the poor, with a special focus on the influence of social movements on policy and politics...[the] discussion suggests that the power of social movements lies less in their ability to influence the specifics of policies and programmes, and rather more in their capacity to change the terms in which societies debate poverty and social change, and to influence the types of development and policy alternatives that are considered legitimate in a given social and political context"