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Strengthening rehabilitation in health emergency preparedness, readiness, response and resilience: policy brief

Pete Skelton
et al
July 2023

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Strengthening rehabilitation in health emergency preparedness, response, and resilience: policy brief outlines the evidence for rehabilitation in emergencies and the need for greater preparedness of rehabilitation services. It shows how existing guidelines support the integration of rehabilitation in emergencies and sets out the steps that decision-makers can take to better integrate rehabilitation into health emergency preparedness and response.

Case studies are provided from Japan, Nepal, Phillipines, Australian and Sweden

What progress has been made to operationalise the United Nations’ Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities (UNCRPD) framework to promote inclusive employment? - Evidence Brief

LAMBERT, Felix
May 2021

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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.

How to design disability-inclusive social protection

UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT DIVISION
April 2021

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This is the fifth in a series of policy guides developed to support policymakers and practitioners in Asia and the Pacific in their efforts to strengthen social protection.

This policy guide explains why social protection is important for persons with disabilities 
and introduces key concepts and schemes that are necessary for disability-inclusive social protection.

Inclusive information systems for social protection: Intentionally integrating gender and disability

BARCA, Valentina
HEBBAR, Madhumitha
COTE, Alexandre
SCHOEMAKER, Emrys
ENFIELD, Susan
HOLMES, Rebecca
WYLDE, Emily
March 2021

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Digital information systems serving the social protection sector, and especially social assistance, are increasingly prominent and will continue to be, as is the case within all other sectors. “Why? Because the ability of a country to care for its people and respond to their lifecycle needs depends on its ability to identify those who are in need, enroll them, provide tailored benefits and services, and follow up to cater to evolving circumstances”. Governments also need to be able to monitor programme implementation and impact, feeding into longer-term decisions on design and resource allocation. “All of these actions require accessible, dynamic and real-time data and information exchange if the goal of universal coverage is to be achieved” (Chirchir and Barca, 2019).

The coverage (% of the population included in the information system), relevance (amount/type of data they store), and accessibility (e.g. level of interoperability/data sharing across the government data ecosystem) of these administrative data systems has also been increasing in many countries – posing important opportunities and challenges to policy-makers. The question is how to develop these systems in a way that is inclusive and right-based, leveraging technology “to ensure a higher standard of living for the vulnerable and disadvantaged” (Alston, 2019) rather than becoming a further barrier to inclusion. To illustrate the point this paper specifically focuses on gender and disability inclusion, while acknowledging similar considerations apply to all other forms of (intersectional) exclusion.

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.

The disability-confident employers' toolkit

BROWN, Simon
SCOTT-PARKER, Susan
November 2020

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Here you can find all documents in one zipfile that relate to the disability-confident employers’ toolkit: a unique portfolio of practical guides, checklists, case studies and resources that make it easier for any business to be disability confident.

Ensuring the right to quality inclusive education for persons with disabilities: From commitment to action

UNESCO
November 2020

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The international symposium "Ensuring the right to quality inclusive education for persons with disabilities: From commitment to action", co-organized by UNESCO, the Leonard Cheshire, and the Ministry of Education of Portugal brought together a wide range of stakeholders across the globe to discuss progress, successes achieved and challenges to ensure full participation and access to quality learning opportunities for all learners.

The symposium aims were to:

  • review persisting, as well as new challenges, due to the COVID-19 pandemic that are hindering the fulfilment of the right to inclusive education for learners with disabilities.
  • facilitate the exchange of experiences on factors influencing successful inclusive policies and practices for learners with disabilities and strengthen dialogue and cooperation amongst stakeholders at policy and practice levels.
  • explore how the inclusion of learners with disabilities in inclusive settings can be more effectively addressed by governments with regards to the commitments of Article 24 of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), the CRPD General Comment 4 on article 24, and Sustainable Development 4 SDG 4, to ‘ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.

The programme included:

Opening session - Accelerating efforts towards inclusive education for learners with disabilities. (Video recording: English - French - Spanish)

Session 1 - From legislation to inclusive practices: Re-designing policy frameworks, funding and monitoring arrangements across sectors for inclusive education for learners with disabilities. (Video recording: English - French - Spanish)

Session 2 - Revisiting the teaching and learning process to ensure access and participation of learners with disabilities.

Session 3 - Moving towards inclusive and safe learning environments, including by addressing violence and bullying against learners with disabilities.
 

Closing session - Rebuilding a Stronger Global Disability Inclusive Education System post COVID-19. (Video recording: English - French - Spanish)

Global leaders renew commitments on road safety

HUMANITY & INCLUSION (HI)
September 2020

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On 1st September 2020, the UN adopted a new Resolution on Road Safety to extend until 2030 the global commitments to improve road safety and launched the Second Decade of Action for Road Safety (2021-2030), thus encouraging greater efforts worldwide.  This builds on the Ministerial Declaration adopted in Stockholm in February 2020 and integrates the joint key asks of the many civil society organisations that have been advocating, over the past years, for stronger global leadership on road safety.

The Global Alliance of NGOs for Road Safety, of which Humanity & Inclusion (HI) is a member, has convened and leveraged the diverse voices of road users, road crashes victims’ associations, local organisations and international NGOs. This Resolution represents a great achievement for the global road safety community.

Labour Force Survey (LFS) resources. The global reference for labour force survey design

INTERNATIONAL LABOUR ORGANISATION (ILO)
July 2020

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National labour force surveys (LFS) are the main source behind essential headline indicators of the labour market and the world of work. A wide range of economic and social policies, from monetary and fiscal policies to employment, decent work, vocational education and training, and a wide range of poverty reduction and social inclusion policies depend on labour force surveys as their main source of statistics for informed decision-making and monitoring.

To support countries in developing their national LFS, the ILO Department of Statistics maintains a set of model LFS resources to support PAPI and CAPI data collection. The ILO model LFS resources consolidate existing good survey practice and new approaches following evidence from ILO’s LFS testing programme to support the collection of work and labour market data, aligned with the latest international standards.

 

An add-on module has been introduced (July 2020) "Functional difficulties and barriers to employment" concerned with different barriers to labour market integration of persons with disabiliities.

HLPF 2020: "Will the SDGs still be relevant after the pandemic for persons with disabilities?

INTERNATIONAL DISABILITY ALLIANCE (IDA)
June 2020

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In the framework of the 2020 High-level Political Forum, the event provided a platform for governments championing disability-inclusive sustainable development. Governments were able to share the measures that they have and will carry out to ensure that the “leave no one behind” and “reach the furthest behind first” will still be achievable despite all the challenges caused by the pandemic. The event also featured diverse testimonies from persons with disabilities, in particular underrepresented groups, sharing their experiences and requests with world leaders in order to rebuild a more disability-inclusive future

Disability-inclusive disaster recovery (Disaster Recovery Guidance Series)

ROBINSON, Alex
2020

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This guidance note provides action-oriented direction for government officials and decision-makers with responsibility for post-disaster recovery and reconstruction. The guidance will enable the development of disability-inclusive planning and programming across sectors and government. The note is expected to be of interest to wider government and non-government actors, including disabled persons’ organizations (DPOs), concerned with inclusive recovery.

Abortion and disability: Towards an intersectional human rights-based approach

WOMEN ENABLED INTERNATIONAL
January 2020

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Ongoing debates around fetal impairment as a legal basis for abortion act as a wedge issue between the disability rights and reproductive rights movements. Disability rights advocates are concerned that laws that expressly permit abortion on grounds of fetal impairment codify the notion that disabled lives are worth less than non-disabled lives. Reproductive rights advocates are concerned that reforming abortion laws to remove fetal impairment grounds—or to expressly ban abortion in the case of a fetal impairment diagnosis—will result in less access to safe abortion and exacerbate the attendant human rights consequences. These tensions are fueled both by advocacy strategies to advance abortion rights that can reinforce harmful disability-related stereotypes and by opponents of abortion rights co-opting disability rights language to impose greater restrictions on abortion access.

Women with disabilities, who live at the intersection of these two movements, care deeply about both protecting reproductive autonomy, including the right to access safe abortion, and dismantling harmful disability-related stigma. Too often, however, their voices are left out of the debate. To remedy this lack of voice and representation in these ongoing debates, Women Enabled International (WEI) conducted a series of consultations with 40 persons with diverse disabilities, who have the biological capacity to become pregnant, and who advocate at the intersection of gender and disability. These consultations provided a safe space in which these advocates from around the globe could discuss specific concerns around this historic tension.

In this framing document, WEI identifies the primary concerns of the women with disabilities who participated in these consultations—as well as the primary concerns of the disability rights and the reproductive rights movements, analyzes the human rights standards that underpin this debate, and applies an intersectional human rights-based approach to posit a way forward.

Disability Inclusion 101. Basic Concepts and Approaches

UNITED NATIONS
2020

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Through a conversation with panelists, the Disability Inclusion 101: Basic Concepts and Approaches webinar seeks to address the following topics:

  • Understanding the concept of disability: who are persons with disabilities? 
  • What is the human rights-based approach to disability? 
  • Universal design, accessibility, and reasonable accommodation 
  • The twin-track approach: combining disability-targeted initiatives with disability inclusion in mainstream initiatives 
  • What is an organization of persons with disabilities and how to engage with them

 

Opening Speaker: USG Ana Maria Menéndez, Senior Advisor on Policy to the Secretary-General

Panelists:

Mr. Facundo Chavez Penillas, Human Rights & Disability Advisor, Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR)

Ms. Charlotte Vuyiswa McClain-Nhlapo, Global Disability Advisor, World Bank
Mr. Stefan Tromel, Senior Disability Inclusion Specialist, International Labour Organization (ILO)
Ms. Elham Yussefian, Inclusive Humanitarian and DRR Advisor, International Disability Alliance
 

The webinar was moderated and facilitated by Mr. Gopal Mitra, Senior Social Affairs Officer, and Ms. Georgia Dominik, Social Affairs Officer, Disability Team, Executive Office of the Secretary-General (EOSG).

Policy brief: Access to assistive technology

WORLD HEALTH ORGANISATION (WHO)
2020

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This brief is for policy-makers in any ministry involved in designing assistive technology policies and programmes (such as ministries of health, finance and social welfare), especially those involved in designing universal health coverage programmes. It is also relevant for all stakeholders working in these areas. The brief highlights key challenges in ensuring equitable access to high-quality, affordable assistive technology and suggests actions to improve access within universal health coverage or any other national health/welfare programme.

Equal reproduction rights? The right to found a family in United Nations’ disability policy since the 1970s

VAN TRIGT, Paul
2019

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With the adoption of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) in 2006, disability as an issue of human rights and international law can no longer be ignored. The history of this convention can be traced back to the 1970s, when disability was framed in United Nations (UN) declarations as a human-rights issue at the global level. One of the recurrent topics of debate during this trajectory was the right of people with dis- abilities to found a family. This right was far from self-evident and was evaluated very differently by various stakeholders.

This study follows the right to have a family in UN disability policy since the 1970s. The history of the family in relation to disability at the global level has been a neglected field of enquiry compared to other concepts such as gender and race. This study investigates how and why the right to found a family was framed in the Declarations on the Rights of Mentally Disabled Persons (1971) and Disabled Persons (1975), the International Year of Disabled Persons (1981), the International Decade of Disabled Persons (1983 − 1992), the Standard Rules on the Equalization of Opportunities for Persons with Disabilities (1993) and the UNCRPD in 2006.

The trajectory of the right of people with disabilities to found a family that emerges from these cases shows a change in the 1990s from a social-policy to a human-rights approach towards disability – which reflects a broader trend in global and local histories of human rights. In the case of reproductive rights of people with disabilities this change meant that the emphasis was laid more on providing a legal protection for the individual against the interference of others (so-called negative freedom) than on enhancing the opportunities for disabled people to practice their (positive) freedom.

Right to education handbook

RIGHT TO EDUCATION INITIATIVE (RTE)
UNESCO
January 2019

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This handbook was developed to guide action on ensuring full compliance with the right to education. The aim of this handbook is to facilitate the realisation and universal enjoyment of the right to education. Its objective is not to present the right to education as an abstract, conceptual, or purely legal concept, but rather to be action-oriented. Where possible, practical guidance is given on how to implement and monitor the right to education along with recommendations to overcome persistent barriers. 

 

The section on special protection of the right of education of marginalised groups contains content concerning people with disabilities. Access to education is also covered.

Assistive technology provision: towards an international framework for assuring availability and accessibility of affordable high-quality assistive technology

DE WITTE, Luc
STEEL, Emily
GUPTA, Shivani
RAMOS, Vinicius Delgado
ROENTGEN, Uta
2018

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Purpose: This is a position paper describing the elements of an international framework for assistive technology provision that could guide the development of policies, systems and service delivery procedures across the world. It describes general requirements, quality criteria and possible approaches that may help to enhance the accessibility of affordable and high quality assistive technology solutions.

 

Materials and methods: The paper is based on the experience of the authors, an analysis of the existing literature and the inputs from many colleagues in the field of assistive technology provision. It includes the results of discussions of an earlier version of the paper during an international conference on the topic in August 2017.

 

Results and conclusion: The paper ends with the recommendation to develop an international standard for assistive technology provision. Such a standard can have a major impact on the accessibility of AT for people with disabilities. The paper outlines some the key elements to be included in a standard.

Disability inclusion in disaster risk management - Promising practices and opportunities for enhanced engagements

GUERNSEY, Katherine
SCHERRER, Valerie
April 2018

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Disaster risk management aims to address vulnerability in order to reduce risk and therefore needs to consider the full range of vulnerability drivers, including those that affect persons with disabilities. This report presents the results of comprehensive review of the state of practice in disability-inclusive Disaster risk management (DRM) undertaken by GFDRR (Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery). The report is intended to help World Bank staff incorporate persons with disabilities and a disability perspective into their ongoing DRM work. The report will also be of interest to other development actors and stakeholders working on DRM.

Assistive technology policy: a position paper from the first global research, innovation, and education on assistive technology (GREAT) summit

MACLACHLAN, Malcolm
BANES, David
BELL, Diane
BORG, Johan
DONNELLY, Brian
FEMBEK, Michael
GHOSH, Ritu
GOWRAN, Rosemary Joan
HANNAY, Emma
HISCOCK, Diana
HOOGERWERF, Evert-Jan
HOWE, Tracey
KOHLER, Friedbert
LAYTON, Natasha
LONG, Siobhán
MANNAN, Hasheem
MJI, Gubela
ONGOLO, Thomas Odera
PERRY, Katherine
PETTERSSON, Cecilia
POWER, Jessica
RAMOS, Vinicius Delgado
SLEPIČKOVÁ, Lenka
SMITH, Emma M
TAY-TEO, Kiu
GEISER, Priscille
HOOKS, Hilary
2018

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Increased awareness, interest and use of assistive technology (AT) presents substantial opportunities for many citizens to become, or continue being, meaningful participants in society. However, there is a significant shortfall between the need for and provision of AT, and this is patterned by a range of social, demographic and structural factors. To seize the opportunity that assistive technology offers, regional, national and sub-national assistive technology policies are urgently required. This paper was developed for and through discussion at the Global Research, Innovation and Education on Assistive Technology (GREAT) Summit; organized under the auspices of the World Health Organization’s Global Collaboration on Assistive Technology (GATE) program. It outlines some of the key principles that AT polices should address and recognizes that AT policy should be tailored to the realities of the contexts and resources available. AT policy should be developed as a part of the evolution of related policy across a number of different sectors and should have clear and direct links to AT as mediators and moderators for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. The consultation process, development and implementation of policy should be fully inclusive of AT users, and their representative organizations, be across the lifespan, and imbued with a strong systems-thinking ethos. Six barriers are identified which funnel and diminish access to AT and are addressed systematically within this paper. We illustrate an example of good practice through a case study of AT services in Norway, and we note the challenges experienced in less well-resourced settings. A number of economic factors relating to AT and economic arguments for promoting AT use are also discussed. To address policy-development the importance of active citizenship and advocacy, the need to find mechanisms to scale up good community practices to a higher level, and the importance of political engagement for the policy process, are highlighted. Policy should be evidence-informed and allowed for evidence-making; however, it is important to account for other factors within the given context in order for policy to be practical, authentic and actionable.

International Humanitarian Law (IHL) and Persons with Disabilities

INTERNATIONAL COMMITTEE OF THE RED CROSS (ICRC)
October 2017

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"International humanitarian law (IHL) is a set of rules that, in times of armed conflict, seeks – for humanitarian reasons – to protect persons who are not, or are no longer directly participating in hostilities, and to restrict means and methods of warfare. IHL requires parties to armed conflicts to afford special respect and protection to persons with disabilities and helps ensure their inclusion. A number of weapons-related treaties aims to prevent certain disabilities from occurring by prohibiting the use of particular weapons and reducing the dangers they pose. They also seek to ensure that victims receive appropriate assistance"

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