Disability in International News

Overview

Multiple-Stakeholder Perspectives on Accessibility Data and the Use of Socio-Technical Tools to Improve Sidewalk Accessibility (2023, Disabilities)

Chasing Rainbows: Designing for colorblindness. “Apparently, the very idea of colorblindness is hard to visualize. Take a shot at looking through my eyes.” (2023, The Verge)

Meghan Hussey on 4 ways to design a disability-friendly future (2022, TED Talk)

Co-creating Inclusive Public Spaces: Learnings from Four Global Case Studies on inclusive Cities. “Many public spaces are not regulated by conventional building standards, especially when constructed or formed within informal settlements or within privately-owned spaces. This requires broader advocacy and education to ensure clients and built environment practitioners uphold inclusive design standards in their work.” (2022, Journal of Public Space)

Accessibility Toolkit from UNICEF. Focus on accessibility of physical spaces and built environment. The checklists look particularly helpful. (2022, UNICEF)

The World Bank Technical Note on Accessibility a big resource providing strategic directions, guidance for the project cycle, thematic briefs and technical references. Thematic areas include WASH, ICT, Transportation, Urban Sector and Operations. Further, if you need accessibility standards for built environments, the technical references part of the guide looks like a good reference. (2022, World Bank) The primary audience for this is World Bank teams. Given the range and significance of the projects they fund, this is a useful resource that is trying to leverage the Bank's role to help countries take more substantial accessibility actions within those projects.

Global guide: Access for all Creating inclusive global built environments. (2022) See a summary of the contents on Fair Play Talks.

An interactive feature on Inaccessible Cities featuring disabled people, their lives, and the urban infrastructure that gets in their way, in New York, Lagos and Mumbai. (2022, Aljazeera)

The Zero Project 2022 Conference on Accessibility was held in Vienna and online. As well as the talks, including one by yours truly, see the 2022 report which describes the innovative practices and much more. (2022)

The Against List. Reflections for designers to engage with disability, and questions to ask to avoid this dynamic:

'We have realized that advocating for “more disabled people in design” without advocating structural changes to what design is, how it operates, and what problems it seeks to solve is just advocating for a select few people to gain more power within an unjust system, while allowing the marginalization of others by that system to become more entrenched.' (2022, Alex Haagaard)

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Housing

Lawsuit Uncovers Chicago’s Failure to Provide Disability Protections in Housing. “Advocates say people with disabilities are suffering the worst consequences of the U.S.’s affordable housing crisis.” (2023, Truthout)

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Global Report on Older People with Deafblindness (2023, WFDB)

Connecting generations: planning and implementing interventions for intergenerational contact. (2023, WHO)

As my disabled body ages: Stories from 6 disabled people: “time in a disabled body has nothing to do with age but all about the changes we notice over time.” (2023, Women Enabled International)

Rights of older persons in climate change-induced disasters and how to build forward more equally. (2023, Independent Expert on enjoyment of all human rights by older persons)

A guide to national programmes for age-friendly cities and communities. (2023, WHO)

Still Kicking a “workshop is designed to inform the emerging conversation around the intersection of ageism and ableism”. (2022, Old School)

A report from UN Independent Expert on Older persons deprived of liberty: “older persons are more likely to be de facto deprived of liberty in care facilities than in prisons” (2022, UN) See commentary from Human Rights Watch.

Older people left out as UN speeches repeatedly invoke young. “Older persons are pretty much missing, everybody thinks that the future is just something for younger persons.” (2022, AP News)

The Special Rapporteur on Disability on Making International Protection Of Adults Consistent with the Convention on Rights of Persons with Disabilities: “A similar revolution of ideas is now permeating the field concerning the rights of older persons. Any future treaty on the rights of older persons is also likely to be grounded on dignity and autonomy.” (2022, Gerard Quinn)

Book-review of the The Aging–Disability Nexus (2022, Disability Studies Community)

An easy-read version on how older people are treated very badly and what countries should do to make sure that older people get their human rights. (link to pdf, 2022, Independent Expert for UNHRC)

Five priorities to tackle abuse of older people (1) combat ageism; (2) generate more and better data on prevalence and on risk and protective factors; (3) develop and scale up cost–effective solutions; (4) make an investment case for addressing the issue; and (5) raise funds to tackle the issue. (2022, Decade of Healthy Ageing)

Low Income Puts Older People’s Rights at Risk. Brief recap on ageing issues, and international discussions to start a drafting a treaty protecting older people's rights. (2022, Human Rights Watch)

A meeting of the working group dedicated to strengthening the protection of the human rights of older persons. (2022, UNDESA)

As part of the Age with Rights campaign a Global Rally calling for the stronger protection and promotion of older people's human rights. (2022, Global Alliance for the Rights of Older People) See also from Human Rights Watch.

A background paper Measuring the Autonomy, Participation, and Contribution of Older People (link to pdf, 2022, Center for Inclusive Policy)

UN Advocacy Brief on Older Women: Inequality at the Intersection of Age and Gender (2022, Decade of Healthy Ageing)

Baseline Report for the Decade of Healthy Ageing. It's striking to see how this summary avoids mentioning disability when its first page is basically an illustration of an adapted social model of disability. (2022, WHO)

A policy brief on Better protecting the human rights in older age and the work of the UN group exploring this issue. (2022, BAGSO)

Madrid International Plan of Action on Ageing Country Progress reports (2022, UNECE)

A guide on Bringing generations together for change: Learning from intergenerational approaches to address issues facing older and younger people. (2022, HelpAge)

Statement on Ageing with Spina Bifida and Hydrocephalus

'Related – perhaps inseparable – from the physical health challenges faced by SBH adults and increased reports of mental health challenges. The lived experiences of many SBH adults involves increased isolation – in large part due to the changes in physical health described above, that can make it more difficult to enjoy a full social life. It is not surprising then that many people report an increase in anxiety and depression. This can result in a negative cycle, as people are less likely to make the effort to see others, which further increases the sense of isolation. ' (2021, IF Global)

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Apple gets FDA authorization to turn the AirPods Pro into hearing aids. “The second-generation AirPods Pro will be able to serve as clinical-grade hearing aids later this fall.” (Sep, The Verge)

Assistive Products Market Report 2024 Findings include:

• “Of the billions of people who need eyeglasses, just 36 percent can access them.”
• “Hearing aids are available to just 20 percent of the hundreds of millions of people with hearing loss.”
• “Wheelchairs are available for just 5 to 35 percent of the 80 million people who need them.” (Jun, ATscale)

Guidelines for assistive technology service provision – a scoping review. (Mar, AT2030 Programme)

Navigating the AT Ecosystem as Users: Findings from IDA’s Assistive Technology Survey, which received 1040 responses from over 100 countries. (Mar, IDA)

Hearing aid service delivery approaches for low- and middle-income settings. (Feb, WHO)

Unlock the everyday a new campaign for assistive technology in low and middle-income countries. (Jan, Unlock the Everyday)

In search of a prosthetic revolution: from charity to investment.

“It is not just money that is needed. A huge amount of time is involved in making prosthetic limbs, in particular because they are a feat of engineering and science. I can spend anywhere between one to four years getting a new leg made and people wonder why I have to be so careful not to gain or lose weight: if my leg does not fit, I have to spend a huge amount of time in clinics having a new one made. The process is slow, open to error, and sadly can take a lot of time to get right. All these things can really impact people’s mental health, especially if anyone has fluctuating weight and their limb simply does not fit. These are the added pressures faced by so many amputees and prosthetic limb users on a daily basis.” (2023, ATscale)

Assistive Technology Digest a quarterly publication “with the objective of increasing awareness about the possibilities offered by assistive technology as experienced by its users.” (2023, IDA)

Repair strategies for assistive technology in low resource settings “The results of this analysis demonstrate the paramount importance of community-based repair of devices, and how despite this importance, repair is often overlooked in the planning and design of assistive products and services.” (2023, Disability and Rehabilitation: Assistive Technology)

How the wheelchair opened up the world to millions of people Wheelchairs have existed since the invention of the wheel. But technological advances have revolutionized the way that people use them. (2023, National Geographic)

GDI Hub, Google and AT Scale launch pioneering project to test ‘Mobile at Assistive Tech’ in Kenya, Brazil and India. (2023, Global Disability Innovation Hub)

WHO releases new Wheelchair provision guidelines (2023, WHO)

What Works highlights report a summary of learnings in data, innovation, implementation, capacity and participation. (2023, AT2030)

‘Care bots’: a dream for carers or a dangerous fantasy? (2023, the Guardian)

Walking naturally after spinal cord injury using a brain–spine interface: “a digital bridge between the brain and spinal cord that enabled an individual with chronic tetraplegia to stand and walk naturally in community settings” (2023, Nature)

Sony launches point-and-shoot camera for people with vision disabilities. (2023, Disability Insider)

HearX hearing care by community health workers using digital technologies. (2023, AT2030)

AT Venture Fund Playbook “This playbook was designed to help current and future fund operators and ventures learn from the work of the Assistive Technology Impact Fund (ATIF). It aims to share lessons from launching a fund in a nascent sector and working with a small portfolio of assistive technology ventures.” (2023, AT Impact Fund)

Why Assistive Technology matters thematic briefs explore its relations to inclusive education and climate action. (2023, ATScale)

COVID-19, access and assistive technology: The need for preparedness (2022, Global Social Policy)

Digital Planet audio feature on is disability tech delivering? (no transcript, 2022, BBC)

Making the direct to consumer model work for Assistive Technology warns about the “unintended consequences” of assitive technology relying on charity:

“AT distribution that depends on charitable and philanthropic funding are highly vulnerable to financial cuts and changes in priorities. What’s more, AT distribution cannot be a one-off event like a vaccination camp. Distributed AT must be maintained, adapted and changed as the needs of the user change. Few charitable models are able to accommodate such a model- over time, people can be left with AT that is no longer fit for purpose, and disillusioned as to its value.” (2022, AT2030)

Marketing Matters on how AT startups need to invest in marketing (2022, AT2030)

The Global Report on Assistive Technology: a new era in assistive technology (2022, Assistive Technology)

Needed by one and three and me: assistive technology in my own life and in a global context, with wheelchair cameos by the Pope and Queen of England. (2022, Disability Debrief)

Interesting discussion on Center for Inclusive Policy on Why is access to assistive technology not a global priority? (2022, CIP)

Global Report on Assistive Technology. From the press release:

“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.” (2022, WHO and UNICEF)

A scoping review of Technologies Measuring Manual Wheelchair Propulsion Metrics (2022, Assistive Technology)

What do you call technology that's meant to be assistive but isn't? This essay explores the term Disability Dongle coined by Liz Jackson to refer to well intended but useless “solutions“. The essay explores experience of what happens when the authors call out these technologies and how their idea has spread. (2022, Platypus)

TIDAL N+ "Transformative Innovation in the delivery of Assisted Living Products and Services" - "building a transdisciplinary network" (2022, GDI)

For every dollar invested in assistive technology, there is a return of $9 (2022, IDA)

A systematic review of global population-based research Estimating need and coverage for five priority assistive products. “The finding of high unmet need (>60%) for each of the five APs emphasises the need to secure political prioritisation and funding to expand access to AT globally.” (2022, BMJ Global Health)

Measuring assistive technology supply and demand a scoping review (2021, Assistive Technology Journal)

UNICEF to introduce 24 new assistive products into the global Supply Catalogue. "Through global tenders, UNICEF and WHO have been able to negotiate low-cost prices which will ensure these highly technical and specialized pieces of equipment can be quickly and easily ordered by field teams, partners, and governments." (2021, UNICEF)

Introduction to the companion papers to the global report on assistive technology (2021, Assistive Technology Journal)

A new book Disability Interactions: Creating Inclusive Innovations "focuses on the interactions people have with their technologies and the interactions which result because of technology use" (2021, GDI Hub)

Evidence brief on promoting access to assistive technology for individuals with disabilities in Low- and Middle-Income Settings. "Limited access to assistive technology is exacerbated by the lack of awareness about assistive technology and what the technology can offer to people with disabilities". (2021, Disability Evidence Portal)

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UN Forum Acknowledges People With Disabilities of African Descent in Recommendations (2023, Minority Rights Group)

DisCrit Expanded a collection of essays where “a diverse group of authors engage in inward, outward, and margin-to-margin analyses that raise deep and enduring questions about how we as scholars and teachers account for and counteract the collusive nature of oppressions faced by minoritized individuals with disabilities, particularly in educational contexts.” (2022, TC Press)

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Impact

Impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on access to healthcare among people with disabilities: evidence from six low- and middle-income countries. “Key barriers to accessing healthcare during the pandemic included changes in availability of services due to systems restructuring, difficulty affording care due to the economic impacts of the pandemic, fear of contracting coronavirus, and a lack of human support to enable care-seeking.” (2023, International Journal for Equity in Health)

Why are people with intellectual disabilities clinically vulnerable to COVID-19? (2023, Lancet Public Health)

Spaces of Exclusion and Neglect: The Impact of COVID-19 on People With Disabilities in Bangladesh, Kenya, Nepal, Nigeria, and Uganda. (2023, Space and Culture)

An issue of Social Inclusion journal dedicated to Disability and Lessons from the Pandemic. (2023, Social Inclusion)

“Vulnerable” or Systematically Excluded? The Impact of Covid-19 on Disabled People in Low- and Middle-Income Countries. “We highlight the multiple exclusions faced by disabled people across the sectors of health, education, economy, community, and pandemic management.” (2022, Social Inclusion)

International Perspectives: Disabilities, Social Connectedness, and COVID-19 the experiences of three Special Olympics International (SOI) connected families and how they navigated the pandemic. (2022, Samuel Centre for Social Connectedness)

Millions of older people have died without being counted. WHO estimates 83% of excess mortality was among older people. (2022, HelpAge)

Five ways older women are affected by the pandemic. “With only 35% of older women confirming daily mobility out of their house by themselves, 2 in 3 older women faced restricted mobility.” (2022, UN Women)

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Response

The inclusion of disability and ageing in COVID-19 hygiene behavior change interventions across low-and middle-income countries: A review using the COVID-19 Inclusive WASH Checklist. “Most organizations identified people with disabilities, older adults and caregivers as target groups, but targeted activities to include them were scarce. Where efforts were made, immediate needs rather than rights were addressed.” (2022, Frontiers Public Health)

For Canadians with disabilities, multiple types of support were important during COVID-19. (2022, the Conversation)

Rising to the challenge: disability organisations in the COVID-19 pandemic (2022, Disability and Society)

After 2 Years of Covid, We’re Still Failing Older People. Part of a series marking the two year anniversary of the Covid-19 pandemic:

"Two years after the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, governments around the world are still failing to protect the rights of older people. From ageist comments by public figures to persistent staffing shortages and use of chemical restraints in care homes, the protection of older people’s rights has been put under the spotlight like never before -- and comes up lacking." (2022, Human Rights Watch)

Key Concepts: Human Rights and the Economy a series on human rights on the economic recovery from the COVID crisis. (Not about disability - but maybe useful context, 2022, CESR)

The Global Platform Reader on COVID-19 and older people in low and middle-income countries (link to pdf, 2022, Corona Older)

An evidence brief on How can health and social care services promote the safety and well-being of people with intellectual disabilities during the COVID-19 pandemic in LMICs? (2021, Disability Evidence)

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Living with COVID-19

‘No one is talking about it’: the cruelty of long Covid in the global south.

“When people die, that gets into the media. But chronic, disabling conditions do not – and maybe that’s the cruelty of being in a less developed country.” (2023, the Guardian)

Creating a better post-pandemic future for adolescents with disabilities. (2023, BMJ)

What Makes Brain Fog So Unforgiving “Brain fog isn’t like a hangover or depression. It’s a disorder of executive function that makes basic cognitive tasks absurdly hard.” (2022)

If You’re Suffering After Being Sick With Covid It’s Not Just in Your Head. After the 1918-19 influenza pandemic:

‘Many who survived became enervated and depressed. They developed tremors and nervous complications. Similar waves of illness had followed the 1889 pandemic, with one report noting thousands “in debt and unable to work” and another describing people left “pale, listless and full of fears.”’ (2022, NYT)

Long covid sufferers share stories of chronic fatigue, other symptoms. Five profiles from around the world. (2022, Washington Post)

Long covid could change the way we think about disability (2022, Washington Post)

Many Long COVID Patients Identify as Disabled and Feelings Are Complicated (2022, Verywell Mind)

Pandemics disable people — the history lesson that policymakers ignore Why the complacency over possible long-term effects of COVID-19? (2022, Nature)

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Patriotism is Participation The constant battle between individual versus collective leadership and decision-making:

“Instead of philanthropy advancing conditions for people with disabilities, people with disabilities are improving philanthropy. Philanthropy will be most effective when the direction is set by diverse communities collaborating together to achieve transformative change.” (Aug, Proximate)

Celebrating Disability and Working Toward Disability Justice “Since 2016, we have made 81 grants that have touched disability issues, totaling almost $38 million across eight programs and initiatives.” (Jul, MacArthur Foundation)

Believe in Better: Shaping the future through the meaningful engagement of young persons with disabilities:

“This research document provides an overview of statistics on young persons with disabilities aged 15 to 24, identifies the main barriers for their participation in decision-making spaces, and highlights the efforts and challenges of the UN system in promoting their rights.” (May, UNFPA)

Don’t shut the door behind you A Debrief feature on how Gatekeeping undermines the disability movement:

“In almost twenty years in the disability sector, I’ve seen time and again how an overzealous guarding of spaces and ideas can hinder progress. The very structures we create to organize and advocate can end up holding back new voices and ideas.” (Mar, Disability Debrief)

2024 D-30 Disability Impact List (Diversability)

United Blind Leaders an international coalition:

“United Blind Leaders envisions a world where blind and vision-impaired people are fully represented in leadership roles, particularly in organisations that serve the blind community. We strive for a future where our leadership drives decisions that affect us.” (United Blind Leaders)

Adventist Church in Fiji commits to creating accessible spaces (2023, Adventist Record)

Disabled and older people leading change features of folk around the world. “We have been led, inspired, and transformed by the experiences and stories of people with disabilities and older people”. (2023, Human Rights Watch)

Focus on Organisations of Persons with Disabilities (OPDs) around the world evidence brief. (2023, Social Development Direct)

How representative are organisations of persons with disabilities? Data from nine surveys suggest that “about a third of people with disabilities were aware of OPDs and fewer than 15% were members”. Personally I have doubts that the outcome measures justify this finding, as they seem to be about disability organizations more generally. (2023, Disability & Society)

Leave no one behind: a promise in peril. A campaign to keep the Sustainable Development Goals on track. (2023, Sightsavers)

Focus on Organisations of Persons with Disabilities (OPDs) around the world, an evidence digest. (Link to pdf, 2023)

Beyond Identity Funding: Rethinking Social Justice Philanthropy. A thoughtful and personal exploration of what funders can do differently. (2023, NPQ)

Disability Pride Flag: Origin, Colors and Significance (2023, Good Housekeeping)

Ridiculous Excuses not to be inclusive short, entertaining video of excuses people have used, including: “I'm sorry, but we already have one of those kids”. (2023, CoorDown)

Partnering for disability inclusion “How local authorities, non-governmental organisations and organisations of people with disabilities form effective partnerships to strengthen disability inclusion” (Link to pdf, 2023, Inclusive Futures)

Centering the Voices of Disabled Youth Activists (2023, Women Enabled)

Foundation Giving for Disability: Priorities and Trends reports. About 2% of 2019 grantmaking went to disability-related grants. And, on top of that, it mostly focusses on services and supports rather than rights and justice. (2023, Disability and Philanthropy)

The 2023 D-30 Disability Impact List “honors the unique accomplishments of our most impactful community members globally through a nomination and selection process.” (2023, Diversability)

Let's End Disability Stigma short video from people with disabilities around the world. (2022, CBM UK)

Understanding Minority Youth with Disabilities Through Data and Personal Experience: resources for Centers for Independent Living. (2022, Mathematica)

Our Resistance stories of disability rights activists. (2022, We are Purposeful)

Resourcing Disability Justice: Our Feminist Journey Toward Centring Disability Justice. (Link to PDF, 2022, Purposeful)

Book review of Deaf Empowerment: Resistance and Decolonization “an important book that provides new perspectives on Deaf empowerment.” (2022, H-Disability)

The 2022 D-30 Disability Impact List “honors the unique accomplishments of our most impactful community members globally” (2022, Diversability)

Not just ticking the box: Findings of IDA's Global Survey on participation of organizations of persons with disabilities. In the face of “threats to civic participation and heightening barriers” to participation, there is increasing engagement with international organizations but decreasing engagement with governments. (2022, IDA)

The United Nations and others celebrated World Down Syndrome Day (2022, UN)

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Overview

Include Disability in Planned Relocation Processes “Equitable Adaptation to Rising Sea Levels Requires Consultations and Inclusion” (Sep, Human Rights Watch)

OPDs and disability activists leading the way on climate justice Global GreenGrants work in the area of disability and climate justice: “$900,000 in small grants have gone to disability activists and grassroots organisations of persons with disabilities (OPDs)” (Aug, CBM Global)

People with Disabilities Taking Action on Climate Change An easy-read primer for disabled people to take action on climate change. (Jul, HPOD)

Advancing disability-inclusive climate research and action climate justice, and climate-resilient development. (Apr, The Lancet Planetary Health)

Avenues for disability inclusion in climate and biodiversity action. A review of international policy frameworks:

“The analysis shows that transformative changes can be enacted through four leverage points: strengthening the institutional presence of organisations of persons with disabilities in the negotiations; mainstreaming disability inclusion as a human rights issue; developing mechanisms for disability inclusion and creating systems of accountability; and integrating disability inclusion into national plans guiding climate and biodiversity action.” (Mar, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Finland)

Disability Inclusion in Climate Finance A Background Paper For The Disability Inclusion Approach For Climate Investment Funds. (Feb, Climate Investment Funds)

What I've learned in conversation Debrief feature on conversations weaving together disability and climate justice. (Feb, Disability Debrief)

“I'd fight like hell for you”: Debrief interview with Julia Watts Belser, on not giving up on each other in the climate crisis (Feb, Disability Debrief)

Promoting Disability-Inclusive Climate Action through Litigation “HPOD and Allies Urge Inter-American Court on Human Rights to Take Notice of Evolving International Standards” (Jan, HPOD)

Pathways towards sustainable and just futures with and for disabled populations: a leverage points perspective.

“In this paper, we suggest that addressing ‘deep’ leverage points by 1) recognising diverse valuations of and connections to nature by different social groups (i.e. re-connecting to nature), 2) including disabled populations in decision-making and knowledge creation (i.e. re-structuring institutions), and 3) promoting inclusive education and knowledge generation (i.e. re-thinking knowledge production) can facilitate the development of inclusive transformation pathways and foster sustainable human-nature relationships.” (2023, Ecosystems and People)

Making the green transition inclusive for persons with disabilities. (2023, ILO Global Business and Disability Network)

CBM Global Climate Advocacy Roadmap (2023, CBM Global)

Disability and climate justice interview with the Debrief's own Áine Kelly-Costello. (2023, Down to the Struts) See also an interview with system change not climate change.

The weight of the issue: Debrief feature on showing up disabled in the climate movement:

“Do we put our time into making those spaces more accessible? Do we focus on taking the knowledge that we gain in organising for climate justice back to our own communities? Sometimes it's all too much and we try to assimilate by minimising the disabled parts of ourselves.” (2023, Disability Debrief)

5 reasons why affordable and accessible public transport is crucial for social and climate justice (2023, Greenpeace)

Celebrating One Year of the Disability Rights and Climate Justice Board. (2023, Global Greengrants Fund)

Beyond Vulnerability: The Rights and Agency of People with Disabilities in the Climate Crisis. A series of blog posts exploring different dimensions of the climate crisis and disability. (2023, Bill of Health)

Climate Change and Disability the Debrief's resource guide and original reporting. (2023, Disability Debrief)

Connecting disability to the climate beat tips from the Debrief's own Áine Kelly-Costello. (2023, Unbias the News)

Society Leaves Disabled Communities Sweltering As temperatures break records across the globe, disabled people face unique risks and challenges. (2023, Atmos)

Discussion on the rights of persons with disabilities in the context of climate change (2023, OHCHR)

Examining the Climate Change-Migration Nexus from a Disability Lens (2023, Bill of Health)

Climate Migration and Disability Part 1: What we Know (2023, Sustain Our Abilities)

Climate and Disability Activism: Bridging two important worlds Discussion with the Debrief's own Áine Kelly-Costello (2023, The Martyn Sibley Show)

Climate change and persons with albinism report on the particular impacts and human rights impacts. See also a short video summarising the issues. (2023, Independent Expert on rights of persons with albinism.)

Discussion paper on climate change and disability rights. A study in Bangladesh, Kenya and Nepal. “Lack of transparency of government budgets both centrally and decentralised across different ministries makes it difficult to understand where money is being spent and potentially being re-allocated during times of climate crisis.” See also videos from Malawi and Zimbabwe. (2023, CBM UK)

Enabling Commons Thoughtful conversations hosted by the Debrief's own Áine Kelly-Costello: “This podcast is a space for dialogue among persons with disabilities to explore strategies that will transform our environments, our commons, to be meaningfully enabling for all.” (2023, DICARP)

Debrief Feature: A just transition for disabled people. A disability lens on greening economies and society (2023, Disability Debrief)

Where disability and climate meet. Debrief feature exploring disabled wisdom and an invitation to community. (2023, Disability Debrief)

Nothing about us without us: The urgent need for disability-inclusive climate research. (2023, Plos Climate)

Missing in Climate Action Stories of persons with disabilities from the Global South combined with exploration of ableism and environmental justice. (2023)

Global Impact of Climate Change on Persons with Albinism: A Human Rights Issue. (2023, Journal of Climate Change and Health)

The role of the scientific community in strengthening disability-inclusive climate resilience. “We discuss how the scientific community could advance and hasten the development of disability-inclusive climate resilience, and which areas should be prioritized.” (2023, Nature Climate Change) See also a blog summarising the comment (HPOD).

Persons with Disabilities and Climate Change a collection of articles. (2023, Bezev)

Illegalized Bodies: Addressing Disabled Vulnerabilities and Adaptation to Climate Change based on case studies from the US and Philippines. (2022, Towson University Journal of International Affairs)

An issue on Mental Health & Climate Justice including research on women with psychosocial disabilities in intersecting disasters and climate change. (2022, Mariwala Health Initiative Journal)

A policy brief on realizing disability rights through a just transition towards environmentally sustainable economies and societies (2022, ILO)

How climate change affects mental health highlighting dimensions of concern. (2022, Wellcome)

Leave No One Behind a report on people with disabilities and older people in climate-related disasters. An overview of recent evidence and experiences directly from disabled people themselves. (2022, Human Rights Watch)

Some good news for persons with disabilities from COP27. (2022, IDA)

A status report updating the review of Disability Rights in National Climate Policies. (Link to PDF, 2022, IDA)

The CRPD and Climate Action. Links between the UN Convention on Rights of Persons with Disabilities and Climate Change. (2022, Gerard Quinn)

Global Disability Justice In Climate Disasters: Mobilizing People With Disabilities As Change Agents (2022, Health Affairs)

Climate policy and activism need to make space for disabled people. (2022, BMJ)

Cripping Climate Activism piece with beautiful illustrations on advocating at the intersections of disability, gender and climate. (2022, Women Enabled International)

Climate change disasters are a disability rights issue. (2022, Yahoo)

Interview with Pauline Castres on importance of climate policy, justice and activism for people with disabilities. (2022, WID)

The Barriers and Enablers of persons with disabilities as climate change agents. Based on research in Bangladesh and Madagascar:

“Persons with disabilities have knowledge and ideas which stem from their every-day life experiences dealing with risk and social and structural barriers creating problem-solving skills invaluable in the fight against climate change. Furthermore, persons with disabilities are clearly highly impacted by climate change and have experiences and perspectives which may contribute valuable insight in mainstream climate discourses.” (2022, LUP Student Papers)

Heatwaves worsen mental health conditions (2022, the Conversation)

Disability Debrief feature: Disability in the Heat Why authorities need to prioritise people at highest risk as temperatures rise (2022, Disability Debrief)

A briefing note for the Bonn Climate Conference 2022 on integrating human rights to climate action. (2022, Human Rights and Climate Change Working Group)

Report on Disability Inclusion in National Climate Commitments and Policies The 2015 Paris Agreement calls on countries to outline the measures they will take to reduce emissions and adapt to climate change. Fewer than one in four countries make references to persons with disabilities in these plans, and where they do, it is often cursory. (2022, IDA and McGill) See also coverage on the Guardian.

Climate and sport: Paralympic champion Tatyana McFadden explains the link. (2022, UN)

See previously on the Debrief, Responses to climate change leaving disabled people behind on the IPCC report and recent floods in Australia. (2022, Disability Debrief)

The Sangyan's posts on climate change include reflections on Climate Change, Disability, and the Capability Approach and the displacement of people with disabilities as climate refugees. (2022, Sangyan)

The IPCC Sixth Assessment Report Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability. "Across sectors and regions the most vulnerable people and systems are observed to be disproportionately affected. " Recommends that inclusive governance address vulnerabilities and inequalities related to disability. (2022, IPCC)

The missing conversation about disabled leadership in climate justice. "Disabled people are expert adapters – we spend our lives figuring out how to live and thrive in a world which was not designed for us." (2022, Stuff)

On the IPCC report: Scant mention of disabled community, despite higher risk of climate change impact. (2022, Stuff)

A feature exploring the link between disability and sustainability particularly from the view of the private sector. (2022, Valuable 500)

A policy paper on Locating disability inclusion in action on climate change with advice targeted to the UK government to make their climate action disability-inclusive. (2022, CBM UK)

What I wish non-disabled people understood about disability and plastic. An illustrated coming showing “disabled people often suffer most from plastic pollution, but many also rely on plastic products for health, independence and dignity.” (2022, Greenpeace)

Policy Brief on the decade of healthy ageing in a climate-changing world (2022, Decade of Healthy Ageing)

Cop26: Take stock, regroup and keep disability inclusion on the table for climate action "let's do better together". (2022, Bond)

Resource Page on Connections Between Climate Change and Disability (2022, Disability & Philanthropy Forum)

A discussion exploring Climate Change, Environmental Activism, and Disability (2022, SSIR)

Environmental Justice inclusive of disability animated videos telling the story through a character called Sofía. (in Spanish, 2022, ONG Inclusiva) Also available with English subtitles.

Environmental Justice and Disability with Pauline Castres - YouTube a nice conversation covering key issues and reflecting on COP. (2021, Judy Heumann)

Disability and Climate Justice an overview of the current situation and recommendations to take forward (link to pdf, 2021, Open Society Foundations)

What is Climate resilient inclusive design and why do we need it? Global Disability Innovation Hub at COP26 (2021, GDI)

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Conference of Parties (COP)

Global disability movement demands seat at the “COP table” (Sep, IDDC)

COP 28: the disability movement calls for inclusion in climate action “This Summit witnessed an increased presence of disability advocates and more discussion on disability issues.” (2023, EDF)

Towards COP28: Key Advocacy Messages to Include Persons with Disabilities (2023, IDA)

A Call for Disability-Inclusive Climate Action in India and Globally (2023, The Sangyan)

Ensuring Disability Inclusion in the Global Climate Action Agenda Call to Action ahead of the 28th Conference of Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (2023, Harvard Law School Project on Disability)

Why is disability still waiting for real progress on inclusive climate action? 5 takeaways from COP27. (2023, Bond)

What has been done and what can still be done. Increasing participation albeit significant access challenges remain. (2022, EDF)

Can COP27 contribute to disability-inclusive climate justice? (2022, Disability Debrief)

People With Disabilities Raise Voices at Climate Talks (2022, AP News)

How people with disabilities fought for formal recognition at COP27: “We’re still just trying to get on the agenda”. (2022, Grist)

No climate solution without disability inclusion (2022, LFTW)

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Overview

Plain English Weekly “A weekly newsletter packed with advice, tools and resources to help you write clearer, more accessible content. Sent on Wednesdays by Iain Broome.” (2023, Plain English Weekly)

Complex to Clear: Tips for Easy-to-Understand Communication (2023, Inclusion International)

Comics beyond sight A highly visual case for blind access – beautifully illustrated questions about how to make visual design of comics accessible. (2023, MIT Technology Reviews)

Journal of Critical Study of Communication and Disability First edition in 2023. (2023, JCSCD)

People need to understand information to live their lives independently: about easy-to-read. (2023, Inclusion Europe)

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Sign Languages

Discuss, curse and flirt Debrief discussion of signed communication in Nepal and International Sign. (Oct, Disability Debrief)

Sign Language Brokering in Deaf-Hearing Families Discussion of Jemina Napier's book. “Child language brokering (CLB) is a form of interpreting carried out informally by children, typically for migrant families.” (Jul, Language on the Move)

Position Paper on the Right to Sign Language for Families of Deaf Children (May, World Federation of the Deaf)

More than Signs: International Sign as Distributed Practice:

“This article makes a case for understanding International Sign (IS) as a distributed practice. IS, a translingual practice, arose from interactions among individuals from diverse linguistic backgrounds, integrating signs from multiple national sign languages and leveraging iconic and transparent features of sign language lexicons and grammars. At the heart of IS is the principle of calibration, an adaptive process aimed at aligning signs to foster mutual understanding.” (Signs and Society)

Create a World of Deaf Readers Standards for Sign Language Storybooks.

“The vast majority of deaf children and youth worldwide are not exposed to an accessible language, such as sign languages, until they start formal schooling. This results in serious delayed cognitive and language development in early childhood. Even when in school, only 1–2 percent of deaf students receive education in their sign language, leaving a large percentage of deaf students without access to a sign language in school” (2023, All Children Reading)

Access to National Sign Languages as a Health Need. A position paper. (2023, WFD)

Evidence for superior encoding of detailed visual memories in deaf signers. “Our findings add to evidence showing that deaf signers are at an advantage [... in the] retention of detailed visual memories over the longer term.” (2022, Scientific Reports)

World Federation of the Deaf celebration of international mother language day: "by specifically recognizing the right of deaf people to have access in all areas of their lives to their Mother Language, sign language." (2022)

The Global Digital Library has books available in three sign-languages, namely Cambodian, Kenyan and Rwandan. (2022)

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Braille

First eBraille Public Working Draft is Published. “It is primarily meant for organizations that develop software that will read or write eBraille files.” (Jul, American Printing House)

Introducing Braille Brain! “This is a free website-based, self-paced curriculum to help people who already have literacy skills learn braille.” (2023, American Printing House)

Governments urged to increase access to braille (2023, 1News)

World Blind Union calls for increased access to braille on World Braille Day. “Despite obligations arising from international and national law, we know many blind people lack access to braille itself, to appropriate training in braille, and to technologies that facilitate the use of braille”. (2023, World Blind Union)

The UN international World Braille Day (2022, UN)

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Overview

Resolution on Disability Rights, Peace and Conflict, 2024 “The European Disability Forum wishes to bring attention again to humanitarian crises around the world and their continued disproportionate impact on persons with disabilities.” (May, EDF)

Towards Greater Inclusion The devastating impact of armed conflict on children with disabilities. A discussion paper based on literature review and interviews with experts. (Jan, UN)

In war zones, disabled people must fend for themselves “Despite facing neglect and discrimination, disabled Palestinians and others in Sudan, Lebanon, and the Congo are advocating for themselves and their communities to demand solutions and systemic change.” (2023, Reckon)

War is devastating – but for the disabled and their families, it is a unique horror “My family’s experience in the Iran-Iraq conflict gave me an insight into what many disabled Palestinians experience today:”

“I remember clearly when the sirens sounded my mother would gather us all in one room, away from the windows. Electricity would be cut and then we would huddle together and wait for the planes or rockets to be shot or driven away. My siblings and I did not fully understand the gravity of the situation – another beautiful aspect of being a child – we enjoyed the adventure and excitement without the fear that adults carried.” (2023, National News)

The transformative role of persons with disabilities in peacebuilding processes.

“In this report, the Special Rapporteur highlights the agency of persons with disabilities in rebuilding broken societies in post-conflict contexts. Using concepts such as moral repair and transitional justice, he points to the need to include the voices of persons with disabilities in peacebuilding processes.” (2023, Gerard Quinn)

Persons with disabilities in armed conflict interview to “take stock of the legal protections (and lack thereof) for persons with disabilities in armed conflicts and reflect on how to move the legal and policy debates forward in the next few years.” (2023, Humanitarian Law & Policy)

Alexander Breitegger on the Red Cross and civilians with disabilities in armed conflicts. Interview. (2023, Gerard Quinn)

Protection measures needed to support children with disabilities in armed conflict. (2022, OHCHR)

Mr. Giles Duley appointed as the first United Nations Global Advocate for persons with disabilities in conflict and peacebuilding situations. (2022, UNDP)

Addressing the accountability void: War crimes against persons with disabilities. How obligations in international humanitarian law can help monitor, protect and address disability-based violations of the law. (2022, International Review of the Red Cross)

Including civilians with disabilities in the aftermath of war. (2022, ICRC)

Persons with disabilities in armed conflict. An edition of the International Review: “thirty thought-provoking contributions, including many authored by persons with disabilities, jointly take stock of the legal protections (and lack thereof) for persons with disabilities in armed conflicts, and reflect critically how to move the legal and policy debates forward in the next few years.” (2022, International Review of the Red Cross)

Protection of the rights of persons with disabilities in the context of military operations. A report “widening the lens of international humanitarian law to become more consciously self-aware of the realities faced by persons with disabilities in conflicts”. (2022, UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities) See a summary of the report on Gerard Quinn's website.

The Role of Accessibility and Funding in Disability-Inclusive Peacebuilding. “Persons with disabilities can be — and have been — the source of solutions in peacebuilding initiatives. Participants in the roundtable emphasized that persons with disabilities are some of the strongest advocates in building peace, especially after experiencing violence themselves.” (2022, United States Institute of Peace)

Peace, Disability, and the Violence of the Built Environment Reflections on how disability relates to studies of peace. (2022, Peace Review)

Lifting the cloak of invisibility: civilians with disabilities in armed conflict. Discussion of how humanitarian law would relate to disability issues and bringing together conversations between people with disabilities and military representatives. “Steps must be taken to ensure that people living with disabilities and their representative organizations can and do shape the interpretation and implementation of International Humanitarian Law norms relevant to them.” (2022, ICRC)

Give people with disabilities better protection in conflict and crises (2022, The New Humanitarian)

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Israel-Palestine Conflict

A tragedy within a tragedy: UN experts alarmed by harrowing conditions for Palestinians with disabilities trapped in Gaza:

”Persons with disabilities are being killed and injured by indiscriminate attacks despite posing no security threat, epitomising the deliberate assault on civilians by Israel,” (Oct, OHCHR)

Open letter to the international disability rights community on Gaza “As a human rights movement, the disability rights community cannot remain silent.”

“For Gazans with disabilities, the circumstances could not be worse: the complete collapse of basic vital services, displacement, starvation, disease, and indiscriminate bombing have created a nightmare scenario in which their very survival is jeopardized. Israel’s restrictions on humanitarian aid exacerbate the challenges they face, limiting access to food, medicine, assistive devices and other vital supplies. While no official numbers are available, many children and adults with disabilities have been killed, including long-time disability rights defenders Bader Mosleh and Hashem Ghazal.” (May, A collective of human rights activists)

Crip Call to Action: why disabled people living in the US need to be calling for a long lasting ceasefire in Israel-Palestine. (2023, Disability Visibility Project)

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Overview

Review of 'Elusive Kinship: Disability and Human Rights in Postcolonial Literature' a book by Christopher Krentz, “a thorough interdisciplinary examination of the importance of highlighting disabled fictional characters in the postcolonial Global South”. (Mar, H-Disability)

The Disabled Body in Contemporary Art. a second edition which brings ”a new focus to contemporary disabled artists and their embodied, multimedia work.” (Jan, Springer Link)

Sebastião Salgado releases photography book for the blind. Providing tactile transcriptions of a photo project. (2023, Digital Camera World)

Hatiye Garip’s whimsical comic embraces tactility and audio to create an accessible publication. “With raised spot gloss and an audio bundle, The Land of Uncertainty is paving the way for publications that attend to the needs of blind and low-vision folk.” (2023, It's Nice That)

The Dynamics of Photography and Disability: interview with Jaklin Romine. (2023)

Dungeons & Dragons introduces its first canonically autistic character Designer Makenzie De Armas discusses putting a little bit of herself into the game (2023, Polygon)

It's a cultural fight: Debrief feature with Christian Tasso on using photography to challenge perceptions of difference. (2023, Disability Debrief)

Non Inspirational A collection of interviews about cerebral palsy in fiction. (2023, Julian Gray)

Lego to sell bricks coded with braille to help vision-impaired children read (2023, the Guardian)

Poem-a-Day Guest Editor John Lee Clark discusses selections “from the worlds of disability”. (2023)

The disabled villain: why sensitivity reading can’t kill off this ugly trope. “For centuries, fictional narratives have used outer difference to telegraph inner monstrosity. As someone who uses a wheelchair, I’ve learned you can’t just edit out a few slurs or bad words to fix this – it’s often baked deep into the story” (2023, the Guardian)

Am I ugly? a super-cute video of small figures getting around accessibility, assistive tech and stigma. (No visual description, 2023, Sylvanian Drama, TikTok)

Nurse! My pen! Hanif Kureishi’s hospital musings and the art of sickbed writing. (2023, the Guardian)

On (Not) Discovering Disability in the World of Jane Austen. “Disabled characters are present in Austen’s novels, but largely invisible in her cinematic remakes” (2023)

How Can Art Reach Out and Touch Us? A primer on haptic tech innovation and new possibilities for access in dance. (2023, Laurel Lawson)

Disability Poetics a collection of poems and essays by disabled poets:

“Disability poetry resonates for us because it is fundamentally a poetry of liberation. [...] Disability poetics speaks powerfully because it articulates the resistance of bodies and minds to the erasure, commodification, convenience, and disposability articulated all around us and that we struggle against. In this collection, we mean to resist.” (2023, Poetry Foundation)

A Picture of Health: Jo Spence, a Politics of Disability and Illness. A project featuring different artistic explorations. (2023, A Picture of Health)

Being Seen a new book by Elsa Sjunneson. “A Deafblind writer and professor explores how the misrepresentation of disability in books, movies, and TV harms both the disabled community and everyone else.” (2022, Simon and Schuster)

The Group Fighting for Disability Justice in British Museums and Galleries (2022, Timeout)

Curating Access a new book, edited by Amanda Cachia on disability art activism and creative accommodation. (2022, Routledge)

Cripple Punk: The Disabled Young People Smashing Ableism: “Spiked wheelchairs, studs and cigarettes – cpunk is about rejecting society's ‘inspiration porn’ narrative of physical disability.”:

“We need to see more disabled people behaving badly. And no, I don’t mean blind people littering or wheelchair users shoplifting. I mean we need to see more disabled people behaving like everyone else. We need to see more disabled people smoking, drinking and sticking up a middle finger. More disabled people who are angry, bitter and abjectly un-inspirational – because frankly, there are a lot of us. So where have we all been hiding?” (2022, Vice)

Disabled musicians turning up the volume radio show featuring artists with disabilities. (no transcript, 2022, BBC)

Changing the narrative on disability: is representation in books getting better? Article sees increasing representation in children's literature but not “the same commitment to representation in the adult literature sector, where they say disability is still seen as a niche topic.” (2022, the Guardian)

‘Deaf Utopia’ review – Nyle DiMarco’s memoir is enlightening, depending on how (and if) you read it (2022, Limping Chicken)

23 New And Upcoming Novels With Disabled Main Characters (2022, Buzzfeed)

Geelong, an Australian ensemble of disabled actors, wins one of the world’s richest theatre prizes (2022, the Guardian)

A Different Narrative: Text within Disability Art. "Help the Normals". (2022, Disability Arts)

Review of Disability Studies special issue on disability, film and media. A wide ranging set of articles from self-presentation on instagram, radio in Kenya and disability metaphors in Korean news. (2022)

Latest issue of Ability Magazine features the actor Greg Grunberg and articles from around the world. (2022)

Adaptive fashion: the $400bn opportunity to embrace Disability inclusion (2022, MBS Group)

A collection of poems by Disabled and d/Deaf Poets Curated by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha. I enjoyed Sick4Sick by torrin a. greathouse, which opens:

“I think my lover’s cane is sexy. The way they walk

like a rainstorm stumbles slow across the landscape.” (2022, Poets.org)

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TV and Film

Changing representation of dwarfism in Disney’s live action Snow White remake.

“Many of the fans expressing disappointment that the dwarfs will now be CGI fail to realise how the role impacts people with dwarfism in public. For example, in 2012 German lawyer Silke Schönfleisch-Backofen, who has dwarfism, successfully sued a man after he started laughing and singing Hi Ho, the song the dwarfs sing in the original Disney film, at her in court.” (Sep, The Conversation)

Bridgerton' season 3 captures disability, neurodiversity in regency era. (Jun, ABC News)

Netflix Shows with Disabled Actors and Characters – updated for 2024. (May, Disability Horizons)

The rule-breaking audio descriptions of Netflix's All the Light We Cannot See. Netflix accessibility consultant Joe Strechay talks inclusivity on set. (2023, Mashable)

8 Times When Films Or Shows Got Disability Representation Right (2023, Feminism in India)

All the Light We Cannot See review “this terrible mess is a one-way ticket to Triteland” (2023, the Guardian)

10 Best Anime Depictions of Living With a Disability “Some anime stories minimize or overturn physical disabilities, but these ones provide genuine and earnest representation, in a thoughtful manner.” (2023, Screen Rant)

Why are face equality charities calling for film warnings for Halloween? Interview with Phyllida Swift of Face Equality International. (2023, Euronews)

Hugh Grant is an Oompa-Loompa now. “Hugh Grant’s casting as an Oompa-Loompa in ‘Wonka’ feels to some like the latest in a long line of slights against dwarf actors” (2023, Washington Post)

It’s time to reconsider how dwarfism is represented in the entertainment industry

“People with dwarfism are not novelties or figures of fun. Yet their place in entertainment has been culturally constructed as if they are. Actors with dwarfism need to step out of their comfort zone and push for more roles that break away from those purely reliant on height.” (2023, LSE)

‘I don’t like people feeling sorry for us’: inside the world of TV’s disabled dating shows. (2023, the Guardian)

Barbie's wheelchair vs my actual wheelchair a critical comparison by Katie Pennick. (2023, Twitter thread)

Wheelchair Barbie Is a Lesson in the Power of Showing Up Where People Don't Think You Belong (2023, Teen Vogue)

I'm a Barbie girl in an inaccessible world parody song (2023, ItsAliceElla, TikTok)

Interview with Keely Cat-Wells on disability in movies entertainment and across popular culture. (2023, Gerard Quinn)

Unilever calls for production crews to be more inclusive of disability community “For shoots costing more than €100,000 the brand wants to see at least one person who has a disability as a member of the crew.” (2023, Campaign)

11 Movies or TV Shows with Authentic Disability Representation. (2023, Tilting The Lens)

Netflix Sets a High Bar for Inclusion – and Ensures Disability is Part of the Conversation. “While the report shows that Netflix has increasingly improved its diversity in many areas in front of and behind the camera, representation of people with disabilities has slid back from 2019” (2023, Respect Ability)

Inclusion of the facial difference community. “For almost one hundred years movies have cast scarred characters in different versions of the same roles: villains, vigilantes, victims, outcasts.” (2023, Face Equality International)

Meet James Martin, the First Actor With Down Syndrome to Win an Oscar (2023, Bright Side)

Animated Film and Disability a book by Slava Greenberg, Cripping Spectatorship. “Crip animation has the potential to challenge the ableist gaze and immerse viewers in an alternative bodily experience.” (2023, Indiana University Press)

‘Hardly seen as human at all’: will fantasy ever beat its dwarfism problem? (2022, the Guardian)

Ralph and Katie: Disability Content's Coming of Age. (2022, Disability Arts Online)

Bantering Through Disability and Dislocation In “Tuesco,” Daniel Poler documents a Venezuelan family’s use of dark humor to remain buoyant in exile. (2022, The New Yorker)

Subtitles can be terrible: profile on Netflix's head of accessibility. “About 40% of Netflix's global users use them all the time, while 80% use them at least once a month, according to the company's internal data.” (2022, Business Insider)

Marvel's New Spider-Verse Hero Shows the Struggle of a Real Disease. Marvel's newest Spider-Man variant uses a wheelchair and has Ehlers-Danlos syndrome. (2022, Screen Rant)

'Cha Cha Real Smooth' Star Vanessa Burghardt on Autism Representation. (2022, Variety)

Netflix is beefing up its its audio description and subtitling accessibility features and has a collection of its shows celebrating disability. (2022, The Verge)

'The Simpsons' Makes History With First Deaf Voice Actor and ASL (2022, Variety)

A detailed look at Inevitable Foundation's Cost of Accommodations Report “features line budget research outlining the actual (not presumed) financial impact accommodations can have on TV and film budgets of various sizes as well as a survey of disabled talent on their experiences requesting accommodations”. For example, “30% of disabled talent have had to pay out-of-pocket for their accommodations.” (2022, Hollywood Reporter)
See analysis and critique of the report from Crip News:

‘“Accommodation” as a framework assumes that we ought not to threaten a status quo. It assumes the benefits of inclusion, where disabled people have access to a process but don’t shape or lead its values. The report is a great example of what we might call inclusionism, accommodationism, incrementalism, or reformism.’

What Season 6 of 'This Is Us' Gets Right About Disability Representation (2022, The Mighty)

Team Zenko Go An All-New Disability Inclusive Series From DreamWorks Animation And Mainframe Studios. “Team Zenko Go has managed to avoid all too familiar disability tropes such as, for instance, villains, victims or inspirations.” (2022, Forbes)

CODA won an Oscar: a flawed triumph for the Deaf community. “The movie and the awards ceremony show the power—and limits—of on-screen representation.” (2022, Slate) See also the tension at the heart of CODA on the Atlantic.

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Media

How to report on disability: 6 tips for journalists (Apr, LFTW)

Nothing About Us Without Us An international survey of disabled advocates and case studies from business. “Disability representation in media and marketing matters, yet brands often fall short.” (Link to pdf, Jan, Valuable 500)

Disability equality in the media: a practical manual exploring representation, accessibility, and management. Featuring examples from around the world. (UNESCO)

Stories you won't read elsewhere Disability Debrief stocktake for 2023 on making media for the disability movement. (2023, Disability Debrief)

Disabled People Transforming Media Culture for a More Inclusive World open access book telling “stories of disabled people who have been influential in creating modern mass media.” (2023, Routledge)

How to improve portrayals of people with disabilities in the media. An evidence brief. (2023, Disability Evidence Portal)

‘A View From Somewhere’ DJP Staff, Partners, and Fellows Reflect on Two Years of “Taking Back the Narrative” on Disability (2023, Disability Justice Project)

A disability lens on world news. The Disability Debrief vision, grounding the news in our lived experiences. (2023, Disability Debrief)

Profiles of those awarded Create Fund grants change how people with disabilities are portrayed in media. (2022, Shuttershock)

Rings of power and privilege: Popular media promotes negative biases towards people with facial differences. (2022, Psychology Today)

It's time for the disabled community to take center stage. (2022, Fortune)

Tips to make your visual journalism more accessible. (2022, International Journalists' Network)

Crip News A great weekly newsletter with weekly updates on arts, culture and politics. Largely US/UK. (2022)

Shutterstock is partnering with disability organizations in a Create Fund for artists from diverse backgrounds that help fill content gaps in stock images, videos and other media. See more on the importance of meaningful visual representation. (2022, Shutterstock)

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Clothing and Fashion

Fashion, Disability, and Co-design a collection of illustrated case studies edited by Grace Jun:

“engagement with disability communities to co-design clothing and accessories can lead to functional, wearable solutions for people of all abilities without compromising style.” (Apr, Bloomsbury)

These fashion designers are putting braille right on their clothing. (2023, Fastcompany)

Gucci disrupts disability inclusion. (2022, Vogue)

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Overview

UN Flagship Report On Disability And Development 2024 (Jun, UN)

What cut-off(s) to use with the Washington Group short set of questions?

“We recommend a three-way disaggregation comparing persons with (a) no difficulty, (b) some difficulty and (c) a lot of difficulty or unable to do. In cases where sample sizes are small for disaggregated analysis, we recommend comparing persons with no difficulty to persons with any level of difficulty (i.e. persons with any disability).” (2023, Disability and Health Journal)

8 reasons why citizen-generated data is imperative for people with disabilities. (2023, Data Values Digest)

How many disabled people are there? Debrief feature exploring why the complexity of disability can't be reduced to one number. (2023, Disability Debrief)

Inclusive data and Sightsavers: an ongoing journey. (2023, Sightsavers)

A learning brief on using the Washington Group questions on disability in development programs. (2023, CBM Global)

Disability Data Report 2023 reviews available disability data internationally and explores indicators for 15 countries. (2023, Disability Data Initiative.)

Who is disabled? On whether the functional definition of disability targets the same individuals as the subjective definition:

“Being categorized as disabled according to one assessment tool does not necessarily mean that an individual will be categorized as disabled when using another assessment tool. Two studies found that there was only about 47% overlap between individuals that score as disabled using a subjective measure and those that are disabled according to the Washington Group question set.” (2023, Frontiers In Sustainability)

The importance of citizen-generated disability data. (2023, CBM Global)

Global prevalence of developmental disabilities in children and adolescents: a systematic umbrella review. (2023, Frontiers in Public Health)

Counting children with disabilities starts with changing minds. (2022, UNICEF)

Harmonizing Disability Data to improve disability research and policy. (2022, Health Affairs)

Module on Child Functioning: Guidance note for translation and customization (2022, UNICEF)

Global and regional prevalence of disabilities among children and adolescents: Analysis of findings from global health databases. Comparing data from UNICEF and Global Burden of Disease Study. (2022, Frontiers Public Health)

An analysis of global prevalence of cerebral palsy. “From the limited but increasing data available from regions in low- and middle-income countries, birth prevalence for pre-/perinatal CP was as high as 3.4 per 1000 live births.” (2022, Developmental Medicine and Child Neurology)

Household Survey Data on Disability and Education in countries where the Global Partnership for Education works. “There remain 28 countries (out of 76) for which there appears to be no nationally representative, reliable and comparable survey or census data on disability that could be used for disaggregating education statistics for the period 2010–2020” (2022, GPE)

Why do we need data on women and girls with disabilities? “One way to address this data gap has been the collection and use of qualitative data, including citizen-generated data from organizations of persons with disabilities and NGO allies to complement official statistics to measure gaps and progress. This use of qualitative data is especially important in emergency situations, such as during the COVID-19 pandemic” (2022, CBM Global)

The association between household wealth and the prevalence of child disability. Analysis of surveys in 40 low- and middle-income countries give “robust evidence that in LMICs the prevalence of child disability is disproportionately concentrated in poorer households.” (2022, Disability and Health Journal)

World Bank and Microsoft commit to narrow the data gap. With a “disability data hub” they plan to “expand both access to and the use of demographics and statistics data to ensure representation of disability, particularly in low- and middle-income countries.” (2022, Microsoft)

Should you use the Washington Group questions in your humanitarian programming? A tool to help you decide. (2022, Washington Group on Disability Statistics)

Explainer video on how the Washington Group question approach to measuring disability relate to the Social Model? (2022, Center for Inclusive Policy)

Why is it Important to Identify the Population with Disabilities? an explainer video. (2022, Washington Group on Disability Statistics)

Short video to understand the prevalence of disability (2022, Center for Inclusive Policy)

Short video on Why is it important to identify the population with disabilities? (2022, Center for Inclusive Policy)

Exploring the Use of Washington Group Questions to Identify People with Clinical Impairments Who Need Services including Assistive Products: Results from Five Population-Based Surveys (2022, Environmental Research and Public Health)

A video introducing the Center of Excellence on Data for Children with Disabilities (2022, UNICEF)

How will data help us break the cycle of discrimination and intersectional disadvantages for girls and women with disabilities? (2022, Inclusive Education Initiative)

Report on how organizations within the UN are using Disability Statistics (link to pdf, 2022, UN)

Summary of an article on conducting online interviews with disabled young people during the COVID-19 pandemic. (2022, International Journal of Social Research Methodology)

All children count: Fostering inclusion through data. (2022, Data 4 SDGs)

Why Disability Data Matters Review of Leonard Cheshire’s latest disability data and the Disability Data Portal. "Where disability data does exist, it
can often remain unused. " (link to pdf, 2022, Leonard Cheshire)

Much remains to be done to improve inclusive data collection (2022, Devex)

FIRAH applied disability research General call for projects - 2022 Project leaders can be from any country in the world but if they're not French then it has to be in partnership with a French organization. (2022, FIRAH)

Workshop on Innovative methods for researching disability & COVID19 in the Global South for academics and practitioners, on 3rd March. (Disability Under Siege, 2022)

Addressing the dearth of disability-inclusive data in COVID-19 (2022, Data Values Digest)

The World Bank Open Learning Campus elearning module on Collecting Data on Disability Inclusion. (2022, World Bank)

Data Dashboard on health and disability, “includes data on overall mortality and COVID-19 mortality for people with disabilities, as well as key health indicators” (2022, Missing Billion)

Disability Data Advocacy Toolkit updated version (link to pdf, 2021, CBM Global)

Data-driven advocacy for inclusive employment and social protection The experiences of organizations of persons with disabilities in Bangladesh and Kenya (2021, Leonard Cheshire)

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Research

Disability, the Environment, and Colonialism An edited collection:

“The editor and contributors provide a careful analysis of the intersection of disability, the environment, and colonialism to understand issues such as eco-ableism, environmental degradation, homogenized approaches to environmentalism, and climate change. They also look at the body as a site of colonial oppression and environmental exploitation.” (Aug, Combined Academic Publishers)

The Palgrave Handbook of Research Methods and Ethics in Neurodiversity Studies. (SpringerLink)

Crip Authorship: Disability as Method a book “presenting the multidisciplinary methods brought into being by disability studies and activism. Mara Mills and Rebecca Sanchez have convened leading scholars, artists, and activists to explore the ways disability shapes authorship, transforming cultural production, aesthetics, and media.” (2023, NYU Press)

Principles and process: The ethics of disability-inclusive development research (2023, Bond)

Research Handbook on Disability Policy “Examining how policy affects the human rights of people with disabilities, this topical Handbook presents diverse empirical experiences of disability policy and identifies the changes that are necessary to achieve social justice.” List price $425. (2023, Elgar)

Interview with Arseli Dokumaci on his book "Activist Affordances: How Disabled People Improvise More Habitable Worlds". (With transcript, 2023, Newbooks Network)

Midgetism: a book on the Exploitation and Discrimination of People with Dwarfism. (2023, Routledge)

Crip Genealogies “The contributors to Crip Genealogies reorient the field of disability studies by centering the work of transnational feminism, queer of color critique, and trans scholarship and activism. They challenge the white, Western, and Northern rights-based genealogy of disability studies, showing how a single coherent narrative of the field is a mode of exclusion that relies on logics of whiteness and imperialism.” (2023, Duke University Press)

Intellectual disability a perspective on how anthropology can study intellectual disability: “anthropological research reveals dimensions of the social and cultural life of intellectual disability that biomedical and professional research rarely enquires into, let alone comprehends.” (2023, Open Enyclopedia of Anthropology)

Riberdis (the Iberian-American Repository on Disability) “summarizes and disseminates in free-access digital format the scientific production generated within the Iberian-American field on subjects related to disability.” (2023)

Finding Blindness an edited volume bringing together essays on “international constructions and deconstructions” of blindness. (2022, Routledge)

Disability as Rupture a collection on how disability creates “to reconceptualize ethnographic practices and anthropological projects”:

“Because the infrastructures of everyday life are often predicated on “normal” bodies and their capacities, when disabled bodies interact with those infrastructures, the friction that results exposes the underlying norms that guide social life.” (2022, Cultural Anthropology)

What Have We Learned since Then? A summary of research articles on disability in the sixteen years since the UN convention on disability rights. (2022, Environmental Research and Public Health)

Adapting Disability Research Methods and Practices During the Covid-19 Pandemic: Experiences from the Field (2022, IDS)

Divergent Ethnography: Conducting Fieldwork as an Autistic Anthropologist “Doing fieldwork as an autistic person means to see, hear, and process information in different ways, and this difference has an impact on our theoretical approach. In this sense, neurodivergence can be an epistemological position that shapes and informs our way of looking at reality.” (2022)

Back to contents.

Overview

Designing For Neurodiversity Resources Roundup (Aug, DigitalA11Y)

Coding accessibility: Software by the blind, for the blind feature on the NVDA screen reader. (May, GitHub)

Accessibility Training at Microsoft “Today, we’re excited to announce the launch of our updated Accessibility Fundamentals learning path, free for all.” (Apr, Microsoft)

Alt Text Selfies a beautiful collection of self-descriptions. (Alt Text Selfies)

How to improve digital inclusion and accessibility for girls with disabilities. (2023, UNICEF)

More Than Half Of All Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare II Players Used The Game's Graphical Accessibility Settings (2023, Game Informer)

6 Reasons Why Accessibility is Maintained, Not Attained (2023, AccessiCart)

Why making video games accessible for disabled players is empowering Sony’s Access Controller is the latest high-profile device built with disabled gamers in mind. (2023, CBC)

Try Venngage to make accessible infographics. It's now easier to create professional quality business visuals anyone can access (2023, Wonder Tools)

Forza Motorsport: the Blind accessibility review. “Forza Motorsport is indeed playable by blind gamers and should be the gold standard for any and all racing games from now on when it comes to accessibility and approachability.” (2023, Victor Dima) See further discussion of blind driving assists from Kotaku and a detailed accessibility review from Sightless Kombat.

Cripping Data Visualizations: Crip Technoscience as a Critical Lens for Designing Digital Access. “This paper investigates the challenge of designing accessible data visualizations through the lens of crip technoscience. We present four speculative design case studies that conceptually explore four qualities of access built on crip wisdom: access as an ongoing process, a frictional practice, an aesthetic experience, and transformation” (Link to pdf, 2023, ASSETS '23)

8 ways Google is making daily tasks more accessible New accessibility updates come to Maps, Search, Chrome and more. (2023, Google)

How friendship between NVDA founders Mick Curran and Jamie Teh is changing lives for thousands of blind people. (2023, ABC News)

Google Meet grows more inclusive with new closed captioning languages. (2023, Android Police)

Japanese Game Studios Are Taking Accessibility to the Next Level. “Developers like Koei Techmo and Tango Gameworks are working to make accessible design a global standard.” (2023, Wired)

Apple previews Live Speech, Personal Voice and more new accessibility features. “New software features for cognitive, speech, and vision accessibility are coming later this year” (2023, Apple)

Games Are More Visually Accessible Than Ever. “Indie and big-name studios alike are innovating new ways to include blind and low-vision players, from text-to-speech to sound cues.” (2023, Wired)

Create inclusive content with the new Accessibility Assistant in Microsoft 365. (2023, Microsoft 365 Blog)

Practicing digital accessibility in the workplace. Access conclusions taken from reading Reddit. (2023, Adobe Blog)

This feature has been disabled: Critical intersections of disability and information studies (2023, First Monday)

Blind news audiences are being left behind in the data visualisation revolution: here's how we fix that. (2023, Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism)

Influencing the Trends of Digital Inclusion: An Interview with Jonathan Hassell (2023, Accessibility.com)

Accessibility checklist, testing strategies and considerations. From the Washington Post. (2023, Washington Post)

Individualization is the future of digital accessibility an argument that “universal design is not a universal solution.” (2023, Domingos de Oliveira)

How Indie Studios Are Pioneering Accessible Game Design. (2022, Wired)

Do No Harm Guide: Centering Accessibility in Data Visualization. (2022, Urban Institute)

‘Hey, GitHub!’ will let programmers code with just their voice, together with AI-assisted code suggestions. (2022, The Verge)

Failings in accessibility processes and procurement. Highlighted in a global report: “Despite widespread senior endorsement of accessibility and inclusion, most organisations still need to adapt their project processes to embed accessibility.” (2022, AbilityNet)

The Greatest beautiful music video showing people using assistive digital technology. (2022, Apple)

Discussion of Human-Computer Interaction Accessibility Practice with chronically ill people. (2022, HCI & Design at UW)

How inclusion drives innovation in Windows 11: “he culture of inclusion within the Windows engineering team has helped to foster the development of more inclusive and delightful Windows experiences for everyone.” (2022, Windows)

What’s new in Microsoft 365 accessibility for Summer 2022 (2022, Microsoft)

Accessibility and QR codes: considerations and guidance for creating accessible experiences with QR codes. (2022, Tetralogical)

Celebrate Disability Pride, Uplift Gaming and Disability Communities and Creators with Team Xbox (2022, Xbox)

How to make the most of the Mac’s accessibility features (2022, The Verge)

Tech journalism’s accessibility problem:

“Tech newsrooms (The Verge’s very much included) need informed accessibility coverage. They need articles drawing from firsthand experience. They need to do that without heaping the burden on a small group of disabled writers.” (2022, The Verge)

How to Design for Accessibility with Your iOS App (2022, Intuit Engineering)

By the Blind, For the Blind reflecting in particular on open source software where tools can be full integrated with the operating system. (2022, Devin Prater)

A Digital Cage is Still a Cage “At their most extreme, the use of new and emerging technologies could replicate the worst features of institutional care rather than facilitate independent living and inclusion within the community.” (2022, University of Essex)

May 19th was Global Accessibility Awareness Day focusing on digital accessibility. (2022, GAAD)

The Performative A11yship of Global Accessibility Awareness Day (2022, Adrian Roselli)

Let's Discuss: Mobile World Congress and the mobile disability gap reflections on mobile and digital inclusion (2022, Valuable 500)

How esports and gaming can create more accessibility for gamers who are disabled (2022, Nerd Street)

The Mobile Disability Gap Report 2021. A report on 7 low- and middle-income countries finds that persons with disabilities are significantly less likely to own a smartphone or use mobile internet. “The disability gap typically widens at each stage of the mobile internet journey” (2021, GSMA)

Back to contents.

Artificial Intelligence

Disability community has long wrestled with ‘helpful’ technologies – lessons for everyone in dealing with AI. “Consider another way to look at AI: as an assistive technology – something that helps you function.” (Jul, Yahoo!)

Researchers from Google DeepMind Introduce YouTube-SL-25: A Multilingual Corpus with Over 3,000 Hours of Sign Language Videos Covering 25+ Languages. (Jul, MarkTechPost)

ChatGPT is biased against resumes with credentials that imply a disability — but it can improve:

‘researchers found that ChatGPT consistently ranked resumes with disability-related honors and credentials — such as the “Tom Wilson Disability Leadership Award” — lower than the same resumes without those honors and credentials. But when researchers customized the tool with written instructions directing it not to be ableist, the tool reduced this bias for all but one of the disabilities tested.’ (Jun, UW News)

AI can turn text into sign language – but it’s often unintelligible. (Jun, New Scientist)

How AI is advancing assistive technology (Jan, TechTarget)

GPT-4 Image Recognition: An Absolute Game Changer in Accessibility:

“As you can tell from the samples above, the level of detail and accuracy provided by GPT-4 is groundbreaking. That being said, you will notice that it does have a tendency to misidentify less focused items or those that are less common.” (Jan, American Foundation for the Blind)

ChatGPT is not ready to handle web accessibility remediation (2023, Karl Groves)

Estée Lauder's Makeup App is the Tool for Blind People Voice-enabled Makeup Assistant is here—and Cosmo chatted with four of the app’s users. (2023, Cosmopolitan)

Generative AI holds great potential for those with disabilities – but it needs policy to shape it. (2023, World Economic Forum)

Using AI to support people with disability in the labour market “Building on interviews with more than 70 stakeholders, this report explores the potential of AI to foster employment for people with disability, accounting for both the transformative possibilities of AI-powered solutions and the risks attached to the increased use of AI for people with disability.” (2023, OECD) See discussion on the Debrief.

Prompting GitHub Copilot Chat to become your personal AI assistant for accessibility. (2023, Github)

AI Image Contest Draws Striking Entries disability-related images. (2023, New Mobility)

Real AI Solutions for Accessibility Challenges (2023, Equal Entry)

Artificial Intelligence Incident Database indexes harms caused by deployment of artificial intelligence systems, and has many items related to disability. (2023, AIID)

AI is acting ‘pro-anorexia’ and tech companies aren’t stopping it “Disturbing fake images and dangerous chatbot advice: New research shows how ChatGPT, Bard, Stable Diffusion and more could fuel one of the most deadly mental illnesses” (2023, Washington Post)

How sovereign funds could empower the future of assistive technology and disability AI (2023, World Economic Forum)

Adventures with BeMyAI (2023, Tink)

AI Revolution: Paralyzed Woman ‘Speaks’ via Digital Avatar (2023, Neuroscience News)

To chat or bot to chat: Ethical issues with using chatbots in mental health (2023, Digital Health)

‘AI’ Will Not Fix Accessibility “Accessibility is about people. It is not a strictly technical problem to be solved with code.” (2023, Adrian Roselli)

Visual description via AI, the promise and the problem

“ When it works well, it can take your breath away. When it fails, it can make things up with such confidence that you may be convinced it’s telling the truth when it isn’t. Those of us with no vision may not be able to determine the accuracy of certain descriptions without verification from a sighted person we trust.” (2023)

Microsoft leverages power of AI to improve accessibility for disabled people (2023, AT Today)

Why Sign Language Translation Poses a Puzzle for AI. (2023, Slator)

Cognitive diversity-centred AI can improve social inclusion. “Artificial intelligence can address some of the challenges and discrimination that people with cognitive diversity and other disabilities face in everyday life.” (2023, World Economic Forum)

Can ChatGPT Make The World More Accessible? (2023, Accessibility.com)

New GPT-4 Model Can Reportedly Describe Images Accurately “However, when you’re developing content for real people, you need to rely on the judgment of real people.” (2023, BOIA)

Envision Adds ChatGPT AI Sight Assistance To Its Smart Glasses For The Blind (2023, Forbes)

GPT-4's new capabilities power a 'virtual volunteer' for the visually impaired (2023, TechCrunch)

Be My Eyes Announces New Tool Powered by OpenAI’s GPT-4 to Improve Accessibility for People Who are Blind or Have Low-Vision. (2023, Business Wire) See background on the collaborations that made it happen, and a reflective piece on riding the AI hype wave.

AI-powered HR technology has a disability problem: “AI recruitment tools have become the first line of defence against high-volume online hiring. But unless the unintended consequences of AI-powered HR technology are urgently addressed, hundreds of millions of people worldwide face lifetimes of economic and societal exclusion” (2023, The Forum Network)

ChatGPT for Robotics: Design Principles and Model Abilities: “We extended the capabilities of ChatGPT to robotics, and controlled multiple platforms such as robot arms, drones, and home assistant robots intuitively with language.” (2023, Microsoft)

Ableism and ChatGPT: Why People Fear It Versus Why They Should Fear It:

“If ChatGPT can be used to make education more accessible, then why are so many educators against it? I suspect that part of the reason is that ChatGPT threatens to disrupt able-bodied privilege, which is an entrenched feature of the education system—something used to make decisions about grading, publishing, and hiring.” (2023, APA Blog)

Equally AI Releases ChatGPT-Powered Report on Web Accessibility Websites in the US, Urges Business Leaders to Prioritize Inclusivity. (2023, PR Web)

AI for Accessibility: discussion of opportunities and challenges. (2023, Equal Entry)

Apple's New AI Audiobooks Are Great for Accessibility, Bad for Voice Actors (2023, Lifewire)

ChatGPT-powered web accessibility platform launched (2023, BusinessCloud) Remember to great this kind of news with healthy scepticism.

A memo on disability-centered AI and algorithms. (2023, Yonah.org)

Disability And Algorithmic Risks: Public letter and call-to-action: “Existing approaches to understanding high and unacceptable-risk systems still miss disability-specific vocabulary, scenarios and associated risks” (2023, Yonah.org)

Artificial Intelligence Is Dangerous For Disabled People At Work: 4 Takeaways For Developers And Buyers. (2022, Forbes)

Common AI language models show bias against people with disabilities: ‘when a disability-related term followed “good” in a sentence, the AI generated “bad.”’ (2022, The Hill)

Humanity should get the best from AI, not the worst Statement from Gerard Quinn, whose report we explored previously. (2022, OHCHR)

Bot can spot depressed Twitter users in 9 out of 10 cases (2022, Tech Xplore)

A new alliance for Disability Ethical? AI led by Scott Parker International, IBM, Oxford Brookes and others. "AI powered recruitment technology threatens the life chances of hundreds of millions of people with disabilities worldwide, as well as those of us who will become disabled in time." (2022, Includes a collection of resources)

Policy Brief on Ageism in artificial intelligence for health (2022, WHO)

Artificial intelligence and the rights of persons with disabilities a study from the UN Rapporteur on Disability. (2022, UN) See commentary on the Debrief and summary from EDF.

Back to contents.

Online Accessibility

Accessible and ‘a pleasure to read’: how Apple’s podcast transcriptions came to be. (Jun, the Guardian)

A Brief Introduction to Keyboard Accessibility (Jun, AFixt)

How People with Disabilities Use the Web updated resource to help “developers, designers, content creators, and others understand the reasons behind creating accessible digital products”. (Jun, W3C Web Accessibility Initiative)

A complete guide for content creators to start making accessible content. (Apr, Pope Tech Blog)

Internet Privacy Is A Disability Rights Issue.

“No disabled person should have to choose between accessing technologies that help them lead fulfilling, self-directed lives and protecting their personal information. And, people with disabilities should be able to benefit from technology without worrying that their health-related data will be used for nefarious or unknown purposes.” (Jan, Tech Policy)

Web Accessibility Cookbook:

“dozens of recipes to help you build common components on the web, such as navigations, forms, filters, tables, and dialogs, in an accessible manner.” (Manuel Matuzović)

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2:

“The new updates in WCAG 2.2 focus on improving accessibility for users with cognitive, learning or mobility disabilities and low vision users. This is a beneficial update, showing a positive step forward for the web accessibility standards.” (2023, AbilityNet)

Website accessibility of the world's largest brands. 56% of images are not accessible, 64% have links not clearly marked, 25% of forms are missing clear labels. (2023, AudioEye)

A historical review of Web Accessibility using WAVE “Overall, the data shows that efforts are being made in order to make the websites more accessible.” (2023, UC Irvine)

Are you making these five mistakes when writing alt text? (2023, The A11Y Project)

The WebAIM Million: The 2023 report on the accessibility of the top 1,000,000 home pages. (2023, WebAim)

A guide to writing accessible image captions. (2023, Mashable)

Meet the first-ever accessibility engineer at The Washington Post. (2023, Nieman Lab)

How to write hyperlink text for better web accessibility (2023, Scope)

What's New in WCAG 2.2 Draft (2023, W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI))

New Brutalism and web accessibility: brutalist style and its interactions with accessibility. (2022, UX Collective)

The History of Digital Accessibility (2022, Storyly)

WordPress 6.1 Accessibility Improvements. (2022, Make Wordpress Core)

Verifying the Disability Equality Index by measuring how their website conforms with web-access standards: “the DEI score is not a good predictor of the accessibility score.” (2022, jpdev.pro)

Yes, accessibility is also a backend concern. “Backend developers wield a tremendous amount of power, as they help shape the underlying structure of what is and is not possible when creating a digital experience.” (2022, Eric W Bailey)

Web3 must learn from the past: People with disabilities are the largest untapped demographic (2022, Venture Beat)

What's Happening with Digital Accessibility in 2022 (2022, UsableNet)

Q&A: Patrick Garvin The creator of two web accessibility bots talks alt text and accountability. “If accessibility is only pitched as something that’s related to code or only related to computers, it’s going to be real easy for people in newsrooms to distance themselves from that.” (2022, Objective Journalism)

A how-to on using Firefox for accessibility testing “Firefox has become one of the best tools for accessibility audits.” (2022, The A11Y Project)

Digital Accessibility: The Next Frontier of Disability Rights Includes a discussion on justifying digital accessibility because of legal compliance or as an opportunity for growth, preferring the latter, quoting this reasoning: “[Focusing on lawsuits] capitalizes on this fear that disabled people are out there to sue you and make your life difficult …. It furthers this really horrible view of disabled people that we’re literally out there to get money and that we just use our disabilities for that.” (2022, Women Enabled International)

Exploration of alt-text including detailed advice (2022, Accessible Social)

5 Ways Delivery Apps Don't Deliver On Accessibility (2022, UsableNet)

An accessibility review of public and private sector websites shows private sector websites significantly worse. Even big companies that have made commitments on disability inclusion through membership of Valuable 500 still only offer a median accessibility score of 52.6, a fraction lower than the median score of Fortune 500 websites. (2022, Silktide)

Why Are iFrame Titles Important for Accessibility? (2022, Bureau of Internet Accessibility)

Takeaways from The Internet is Unusable: The Disabled View (2022, Lireo Designs)

Does Your Website Have Have Any of These 10 Most-Cited Accessibility Issues? (2022, Equal Entry)

WordPress 6.0 Features Numerous Accessibility Improvements (2022)

Zoom Continues to Miss the Boat on True Accessibility. (2022, Living with Hearing Loss)

New Department of Justice ADA Web Accessibility Statement reiterating that accessibility online is covered by disability discrimination. (2022, BOIA)

How creating an accessible product helped Stark build an inclusive team "You can’t build an accessible product without breaking down internal silos first" (2022, The Drum)

The Hidden Image Descriptions Making the Internet Accessible a feature on alternative text for images (2022, NYT)

Email Accessibility 4 Best Practices for Marketers (2022, BOIA)

A chrome plug-in Wordle for Screen Readers. Great game, and good to see some accessibility retrofitted: see also a site that gives you descriptive text to allow sharing the results in an accessible way. Another disappointing example of how things can go viral without accessibility being baked in. (2022)

6 Tips to make your Tweets more accessible and inclusive (2022, Twitter)

Disabled And Here "a disability-led effort to provide free and inclusive images from our own perspective" (2022, Affect the Verb)

The case for describing race in alternative text attributes (2022, Tolu Adegbite)

Rich Screen Reader Experiences for Accessible Data Visualization

“Although our design dimensions highlight a diverse landscape of screen reader experiences for data visualizations, our study participants attested to the value of following existing best practices. Namely, alt text and data tables provide a good baseline for making visualizations accessible. Thus, visualization authors should consider adopting our design dimensions to enable more granular information access patterns only after these initial pieces are in place.” (2022, MIT Visualization Group)

Microsoft Edge site ALT text adds more “making the web a more inclusive and accessible place, starting with the blind and low vision community.” (2022, Microsoft)

Back to contents.

Technology

Introduction to Extended Reality (XR) Accessibility: “key considerations for designing and developing inclusive XR experiences”. (Sep, TetraLogical)

Xbox Unveils Four New Accessibility Offerings “Three new accessibility devices and 3D printable files for adaptive thumbstick toppers will join our current lineup.” (Aug, Microsoft)

Empowering navigation for the visually impaired through Augmented Reality. A device that helps users recognise the environment and avoid obstacles. (Jun, Tech Xplore)

Apple announces new accessibility features “including Eye Tracking, Music Haptics, and Vocal Shortcuts”. (May, Apple)

Xbox launches new resource to help developers add inclusion into their games. “Xbox has launched the 'Gaming For Everyone Product Inclusion Framework', a series of resources and information on how to make games more inclusive.” (Mar, Games Industry.biz)

How people with disabilities can use Alexa to help them lead more independent lives (2023, Amazon)

Guided Frame on Google Pixel With Lachi: built-in guidance to guide blind people in taking pictures on their phones. (Short video, 2023, Google)

The iPad was meant to revolutionize accessibility. What happened? “For people who can’t speak, there has been depressingly little innovation in technology that helps them communicate.” (2023, MIT Technology Review)

Google Project Gameface: A new hands-free AI-powered gaming mouse (2023, Google)

Life is About to Come with Subtitles “Automated live captions used to be terrible. But they’re becoming transformative for people who can’t hear.” (2023, The Atlantic)

Xbox lead dev talks about the future of video game accessibility (2023, Polygon)

Not robots; Cyborgs Furthering anti-ableist research in human-computer interaction. (2023, First Monday)

Inclusive AR/VR: accessibility barriers for immersive technologies. (2023)

Sony Releases Its First Accessible Controller. “The company unveiled Project Leonardo, a fully customizable, accessible console game controller, built with the help of the disabled community.” (2023, Wired)

The accessibility charity helping Xbox and PlayStation: SpecialEffect. (2023)

What does accessibility in the metaverse look like? (2023, Vogue)

Virtual Reality Accessibility: 11 Things We Learned from Blind Users (2022, Equal Entry)

The Hidden History of Screen Readers: For decades, blind programmers have been creating the tools their community needs. (2022, The Verge)

For people with disabilities Consumer Electronics Aren't There Yet (2022, PCMag)

Android gets enhanced accessibility features (2022, Chrome Unboxed)

Disability Inclusion Is Coming Soon to the Metaverse (2022, PC Mag)

Microsoft’s Adaptive Accessories: Buttons and mice that you can adapt for your body and needs (2022, The Verge) See also a short introductory video.

Accessibility Virtual Reality Meetup: What Is It Like in Spatial? See also an interview on how a blind person can use virtual reality. (2022, Equal Entry)

Apple previews innovative accessibility features (2022, Apple)

Virtual Reality Is Here to Stay – It's Time to Make It Accessible.

"VR’s reliance on physical movements can be a deterrent for many players with motor disabilities. Beyond that, the headsets and screen resolution can lead to numerous barriers for low-vision users, so much so that games without appropriate features or accessible design are completely unplayable." (2022, Wired)

Virtual Reality Accessibility: The Importance of Comfort Ratings and Reducing Motion (2022, Equal Entry)

Windows 11 is making it easier to control your PC with your voice (2022, ZD Net)

Back to contents.

Social Media

“Tell Me You Have ADHD Without Telling Me You Have ADHD”: Neurodivergent Identity Performance on TikTok:

“I argue that in user-generated ADHD TikTok videos the performance strategies of creators and platform affordances of TikTok indicate these videos function as identity work rather than health information.” (Aug, Social Media + Society)

“You’ve Got to Put in the Time”: Neoliberal-Ableism and Disabled Streamers on Twitch:

“I argue that Twitch reifies forms of neoliberal-ableism through its prioritizing of individual labour, precarious forms of monetization that necessitate cultures of overwork and ‘grinding’, and targeted harassment, known as hate raids, against disabled and other marginalized streamers to ultimately create a kind of integrative access where disability is tolerated but not valued.” (May, Societies)

Disability activists online and the worlds they're helping to build. “A social media response to a massive public health failure” (Feb, Medicinal Media)

Threads launch fails to prioritize accessibility Users question lack of basic accessibility features in Meta's new Twitter competitor, Threads. (2023)

Why disabled users joined the Reddit blackout “Some disabled users fear the API changes will threaten their ability to access the site. Because both Reddit’s website and its official app fall short of their needs, they rely on third-party applications to navigate Reddit.” (2023, The Verge)

Deaf people like me deserve better than MrBeast’s latest piece of ‘inspiration porn’. ‘After coming under fire for a video in which he helped treat 1,000 people’s blindness, Donaldson decided to double down on videos in which he would go out of his way to “help” people from the disabled community’. (2023, The Independent)

Fake sign language is spreading on TikTok. “Sign language has become trendy on TikTok, but many videos feature incorrect signs, sparking fears the trend will cause lasting damage to American Sign Language” (2023, Washington Post) see also the same problem in New Zealand.

Twitter is getting rid of its free API tier. That's a nightmare for accessibility activists. What will happen to all the good bots? (2023, Mashable)

How ableist algorithms dominate digital spaces “From clumsy social media ads to problematic automation in recruitment, algorithms are often unintentionally stacked against disabled professionals” (2023, IT Pro)

MrBeast, Welcome to the #BlindNewWorld ‘As we watched the "MrBeast cured blindness" story unfold online, we wrestled with understandably complicated feelings. Here's where we landed.’ (2023, Blind New World)

Digital Action Pack Accessible Services Social Media Toolkit (2023, Women Enabled)

More than Just a Hashtag: Disability and TikTok (2022, PBS)

Twitter Was a Lifeline for People With Disabilities. Musk’s Reign Is Changing All of That (2022, Time)

Twitter’s Layoffs Are a Blow to Accessibility among the many layoffs were the team working on accessibility. (2022, Wired)

Accessibility in the Fediverse (and Mastodon) (2022, Eric Eggert)

Slack Commits To Making The Digital Workplace ‘More Accessible And Equitable’ (2022, Forbes)

Disability takes center stage on TikTok “Disabled people's accounts are visible in a way that they are not on other platforms, as they are favored by TikTok's For You page and its discovery-oriented algorithm.” (2022, Le Monde)

LinkedIn Top Voices in Disability Advocacy: 12 creators to follow. (2022, Linkedin)

How we're improving the Discord experience for everyone (2022, Discord)

12 Disabled LGBTQIA+ Activists and Advocates Who You Need to Know (2022, World Institute on Disability)

Older people using TikTok to defy ageist stereotypes, research finds (2022, the Guardian)

Twitter reports that only .06% of images on Twitter are accessible. This too often includes tweets from organizations working on disability. (2022, Twitter)

A new TikTok feature changed the game for deaf users. Now, 'DeafTok' is a thriving, inclusive community. (2022, Business Insider)

How Captions In TikTok Videos And Dictionary.com Are Remaking Internet Culture And How We Literally Talk About Disability In Tech (2022, Forbes)

Twitter begins rollout of alt text badges for greater accessibility (2022, Engadget)

Accessibility on Twitch: the complications of streaming (2022, Euro Gamer)

Twitch streamers campaign for Disability Pride Month (2022, Euro Gamer)

Back to contents.

Collecting disability disaggregated data in disaster risk reduction: Findings and lessons learned. (Feb, CBM)

Disability, displacement and disaster resilience: Ensuring the rights of persons with disabilities in situations of forced displacement and statelessness. (Jan, UNDRR and UNHCR)

Advancing disability inclusion in local disaster risk reduction: Analysis and recommendations from the pilot implementation of the disaster resilience Scorecard for cities. “Cities grapple with persistent challenges, and the collective trajectory towards comprehensive disability inclusion remains limited” (Jan, UNDRR)

A Resilient Future for All: a policy brief on Advancing Disability Inclusion in Disaster Risk Reduction and Recovery for Building Resilience and Leaving No One Behind. (2023, UNDP)

2023 Global Survey Report on Persons with Disabilities and Disasters. “The results show limited progress in disability inclusion over the past 10 years, with no significant differences across the regions. [...] The world must act on unacceptable failures to protect persons with disabilities from disasters” (2023, UNDRR)

How can we enhance inclusivity in warnings? 5 elements of ensuring early warnings of disasters inclusive. (2023, Prevention Web)

Disability should not be a death sentence: global disaster response must be inclusive. (2023, The BMJ)

Midterm Review of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030: a position paper on disability. And takeaways from the midterm review. (2023, CBM Global)

Towards more inclusive disaster risk-management policies (2022, World Bank)

Feature on why are people with disabilities left out of disaster planning? (2022, Aljazeera)

Guidance Note on Disability Inclusion in Disaster Risk Management Operations An Exploration of Good Practices and Resources. (2022, Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery)

Including Persons with Disabilities in Disaster Risk Reduction: A Research Study from Eight Countries around the world:

“The study revealed that most disability-inclusive disaster risk reduction initiatives come from non-governmental stakeholders, rather than government agendas aimed at prioritizing and institutionalizing disability inclusion. These initiatives are often reactive (following disaster responses by governments and I/NGOs) or project-based (externally funded instead of being included in the annual budget planning), which raises concerns about the sustainability of these actions and the DiDRR itself.” (2022, Relief Web)

Short video on The Importance of Disability Inclusive Disaster Preparedness (2022, CBM Australia)

UNDRR webinar Disability inclusive disaster risk reduction – still a tick marking exercise? (2022)

High Risk in Conflicts for Children with Disabilities “Armed conflict takes a devastating toll on children with disabilities, yet governments and the UN have not done nearly enough to protect them." (2022, Human Rights Watch)

Working paper on the The Risks and Outcomes of Getting Help for Marginalised People: Navigating Access to Social Assistance in Crises. Includes a section on persons with disabilities. (2022, IDS)

A brief on Inclusion of Marginalised Groups in Social Assistance in Crises (2022, IDS)

Analysing Intersecting Social Inequalities in Crisis Settings (2022, IDS)

Bridging the divide understanding collaborative action in disability-inclusive disaster risk reduction through socio-cultural activity theory: exploring the collaboration between people with and without disabilities. (2022, Emerald)

UNDRR page on disability inclusion in disaster risk reduction including description of how disability is included in its Strategic Framework 2022-2025. (2022)

Disability Inclusive Disaster Risk Reduction (DIDRR) Critical Insights and Good Practices from the Field (link to pdf, 2022, CBM)

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Overview

Trade policy does not pay sufficient attention to persons with disabilities. A report on how “disadvantaged groups, such as persons with disabilities have limited access to the opportunities generated by trade and they disproportionately shoulder adjustment.” (2023, Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland)

Things have just gotten worse The impact of the global food, fuel and finance crisis on older persons. (2023, HelpAge) See a blog on older people at the sharp end.

Poverty of disabled people: more poor, worse nutrition and little coverage of social schemes. (In Spanish, 2023, Yo También.)

Multidimensional Measures and the Extra Costs of Disability: How Are They Related? Exploring whether multidimensional poverty measures can be used to study the extra costs of disability. (2023, IJERPH)

Spark Inclusive a help-desk for resources on disability inclusion in rural economies. (2022, IFAD and LFTW)

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Financial Inclusion

Fintech can help improve lives of people with disabilities (2022, China Daily)

Inclusive Banking: emerging practices and a call to action to enhance economic inclusion of persons with disabilities. (2022, IFC)

Key sheet on Women's Economic Empowerment and Disability Inclusion in Financial Services. (link to pdf, 2022, WOW Helpdesk)

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Social Protection

Methods for Estimating the Impact of Disability Costs for Designing Inclusive Policies “The method used for examining those extra costs should align with its purpose. For example, analysts should consider whether the aim is to assess the current impact of those expenditures on people’s lives or to determine how social protection programs should be designed.” (2023, Disabilities)

Estimating the Extra Disability Expenditures for the Design of Inclusive Social Protection Policies. “The Goods and Services Required approach, it is argued, is better than the often used Standard of Living Approach, and has implications for policy design.” (2023)

Guidance note for consultation: Towards Inclusive Social Protection Systems Enabling Participation and Inclusion of Persons with Disabilities (2023, UNICEF / ILO)

Evidence brief on ensuring older men and women with disabilities are equally included in social protection programmes. (2023, Disability Evidence Portal)

Social protection for people with disabilities: A brief overview of global approaches:

“Only one third of persons with severe disability around the world receives a disability-related benefit. Often the design of these benefits is not aligned with international standards.” (2023, ILO)

Working paper on estimating the Extra Costs for Disability for Social Protection Programs. The paper shows how extra costs can vary dramatically, shows methods to estimate extra costs and how social protection programmes can account for them. (2022, ILO and UNICEF)

ILO and UNICEF report on the role of social protection in the elimination of child labour. “Studies from Bangladesh, Nepal and Gansu Province, China, have found that children in households where adults are sick or disabled or have missed work are more likely to be in child labour within or outside the household.” (2022, ILO)

A message to the IMF and World Bank: Targeted Safety Net Programs Fall Short on Rights Protection. (2022, Human Rights Watch)

Coalition of international organizations holding a conference on Disability and Social Protection (2022, Social Protection)

Social Protection and Disability Evidence digest:

'Approaches by governments with schemes labelled for “poor people with severe disabilities who can’t work or care for themselves” have been widely internalised by disability rights activists, who often perceived social protection as demeaning expression charity rather than as rights-based support. [...] As a consequence, in many low- and middle-income countries, the disability movement and their allies did not engage significantly in framing the emergence of social protection systems. ' (2022, SD Direct)

Social protection and access to assistive technology in low- and middle-income countries by friend of the newsletter Alex Cote. (2021, Assistive Technology Journal)

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Overview

Early childhood development strategy for the world’s children with disabilities. (Jun, Frontiers Public Health)

Experiences of accessing education among people with disabilities during the COVID-19 pandemic: evidence from five low- and middle-income countries:

“The pandemic exacerbated the existing failure of education systems to cater to the needs of people with disabilities and their families. Beyond education, losses in functioning, mental health, and family wellbeing were acutely felt by caregivers.” (Jun, Oxford Development Studies)

How to finance disability inclusion in education to transform systems and leave no one behind. “Reflections and recommendations to enable financing of inclusive education in lower-income countries.” (May, Global Partnership on Education)

UNICEF's Guide to Disability-Inclusive Evaluations (Mar, UNICEF)

How to meaningfully measure learning outcomes of learners with disabilities 4 recommendations to make learning assessments more inclusive of learners with disabilities. (Mar, Global Partnership on Education)

Equitable access to play critical for children with disabilities:

“Access to age–appropriate play and recreation is an often neglected but critical aspect of improving the wellbeing of children with disabilities.” (Mar, Diplomatic Courier)

Strategies for addressing the needs of children with or at risk of developmental disabilities in early childhood by 2030: a systematic umbrella review. (Feb, BMC Medicine)

Inclusive Education, Intellectual Disabilities and the Demise of Full Inclusion

“The movement for full inclusion started by focusing on the education of students with intellectual disabilities but has encountered roadblocks to the implementation of full inclusion because of the practical difficulties of addressing the unique needs of students with intellectual disabilities in mainstream schools and the accumulating evidence that special education placements appear more effective in achieving better outcomes in terms of their inclusion in their communities post school.” (Feb, Journal of Intelligence)

Do children with disabilities have the same opportunities to play as children without disabilities? Evidence from the multiple indicator cluster surveys in 38 low and middle-income countries. “Children with disabilities have approximately 9% fewer play opportunities than those without disabilities“. (Jan, eClinicalMedicine)

Global Leaders Falling Short on Commitments to Create More Inclusive Schools and Communities:

“The global state of inclusion in education in 2023 was a mixed bag. Some governments made modest progress in advancing more inclusive practices in their education systems. But far too few countries had laws on their books mandating inclusive schools, and even fewer countries had policies translating those mandates into sustainable practices.” (Jan, Special Olympics)

Disability-Inclusive Education in Emergencies: Key Concepts, Approaches, and Principles for Practice. (Jan, Education Links)

The right to education for persons with albinism Report of the Independent Expert on the enjoyment of human rights by persons with albinism, Muluka-Anne Miti-Drummond. (Jan, OHCHR)

Addressing stigma and discrimination toward children and youth through social and behaviour change: a disability toolkit. (UNICEF)

Disability Inclusive Child Protection Competency Framework for the Social Service Workforce. (2023, UNICEF)

Bridging divides: The role of inclusive technology for learners with disabilities. (2023, Global Partnership on Education)

Always included a report on uninterrupted education for children with disabilities before, during, and after a crisis. (2023, Humanity and Inclusion)

How to make education inclusive for students with disabilities: Youth perspectives on inclusive education and what actions world leaders need to take to improve the education of students with disabilities. (2023, Global Partnership on Education)

Do children with disabilities have the same opportunities to play as children without disabilities? Evidence from the Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys in 38 low and middle-income countries. “Children with disabilities have approximately 9% fewer play opportunities than those without disabilities”. (2023, MedRxiv)

Global Report on Children with Developmental Disabilities “a call for action to accelerate changes at individual, family, community and society levels to achieve inclusion and health equity.” (2023, UNICEF and WHO)

Approaches to Deliver Inclusive Education in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. “The review examines in what ways (and the extent to which) different approaches have been operationalized and contextualized to enable the inclusion of children with disabilities in mainstream education systems, focusing specifically on primary schooling.” (2023, World Bank)

Thinking critically about inclusive education in Southern contexts volume 10 of disability and the global south is a special issue dedicated to this. (2023, DGS)

Focused interventions for girls with disabilities fuelled ‘life-changing’ impact on aspirations and self-esteem. An evaluation of the Girls’ Education Challenge Phase II. (2023, Cambridge) See also a blog discussing its results.

Global leadership is needed to optimize early childhood development for children with disabilities. “UNICEF and other international bodies must produce a clear plan that prioritizes development and education for children with disabilities, especially in low- and middle-income settings, as required for achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.” (2023, Nature Medicine)

The Routledge International Handbook of Children's Rights and Disability (2023, Routledge)

For the first time, the State of the World's Children report has a statistical annex with data on children with disabilities. (2023, UNICEF)

Evidence brief on impact of collaboration between parents and teachers on children with disabilities in school. (2023, Disability Evidence Portal)

Global State of Inclusion in Education “the vision of international inclusive education is falling short of including all learners, no matter their identity, background, or ability.” (2023, Special Olympics Global Youth and Education) See also an overview: “too many children with intellectual disabilities remain marginalized.”

Measuring inclusive teaching practices that support learning for all. Includes a module with tools on disability. (2023, World Bank)

Disability Inclusive Pre-Primary Education Landscape Review. (2023, Education Links)

The Inclusion Dialogue “Based on fascinating and unique conversations with leading academic experts across the globe, Joanne Banks uses in-depth interviews to examine current debates in special and inclusive education and provides a clear overview of the key tensions which impact policy and practice across different national contexts. Her book also highlights how inclusive education policies do not always translate into inclusive practices in our schools.” (2022, Routledge)

Inclusive Interventions for Children with Disabilities. An evidence and gap map from low- and middle-income countries. See a visualization of data and gaps in different areas. (2022, UNICEF)

Inclusion is better for everyone but children with disabilities are 6 times more likely to be out of school. (2022, Plan International)

Tools to support TVET policy makers and education providers to plan and deliver inclusive TVET provision for persons with disabilities (2022, Leave No One Behind)

Inclusive Education for Learners with Multisensory Impairment: a book that “offers a synthesis of best practice with the latest theory and research”. (2022, McGraw Hill)

Transforming education: reflections on the calls made to protect the rights of persons with disabilities. (2022, Sightsavers)

Children with learning differences are being excluded (2022, World Education Blog)

Global Partnership for Education factsheet on on inclusive education for children with disabilities. (2022, Global Partnership on Education)

The world is diverse and education should reflect it by including persons with disabilities. (in Spanish, 2022, UN)

Fact Sheet on Children with Disabilities (2022, UNICEF)

Value for Money: “Why investing in children with disabilities is worth every penny” (2022, Able Child Africa)

The evidence for benefits of flexible and adaptive curricula in inclusive education. (2022, Disability Evidence Portal)

Deaf education in the developing world: what needs to change post-pandemic? (2022, Global Partnership on Education)

The Role of Parenting Interventions in Optimizing School Readiness for Children With Disabilities in Low and Middle Income Settings. “The global agenda urgently needs to move beyond token recognition of this marginalized group to inclusive early child intervention programs that consider existing practices, cultural beliefs, and developmental goals in the targeted communities. Children with disabilities in LMICs should receive culturally sensitive parenting interventions to improve learning and educational outcomes.” (2022, Frontiers in Pediatrics)

Testing a wide range of technologies to address the reading needs of marginalized children “35% of the awards supporting solutions for children with disabilities.” (2022, World Education Blog)

Education Cannot Wait Policy and Accountability Framework on Disability Inclusion: Realizing the right to inclusive and equitable quality education of children and adolescents with disabilities in emergencies and protracted crises (2022)

Dismantling barriers and advancing disability-inclusive education: an examination of national laws and policies across 193 countries:

“While strong guarantees exist across diverse countries, we find that notable gaps remain. Forty-six percent of countries do not broadly prohibit disability-based discrimination through the completion of secondary education. Legislation in 35% of countries does not guarantee persons with disabilities access to integrated education in mainstream education environments along with necessary individualized accommodations through the completion of secondary school.” (2022, International Journal of Inclusive Education)

World Vision's child protection work A visual journey of disability inclusion (2022, World Vision)

UNICEF School Guide to Supporting Marginalized Caregivers of Children with Disabilities “Inclusive practices are supported when there is meaningful family engagement.” (2022, UNICEF)

Evidence brief on utilising community resources to detect and support children with disabilities? - (2022, Disability Evidence Portal)

A research protocol for study of Effectiveness of Inclusive Interventions for Children with Disabilities in Low- and Middle-income Countries. (link to pdf, 2022, UNICEF)

A short guide on Achieving Quality Education for All (2022, Centre for Inclusive Futures.)

Further events on the CaNDER Seminar Series engaging seminars bringing researchers and practitioners together. (2022)

Students with disabilities hardest hit by school closures (2022, University of Gothenburg)

When All Truly Means Everyone: Fulfilling the Right to Education of Children with Disabilities in Our Global Education Crisis Response. ECW is "committed to reaching 10% of children with disabilities across our investment portfolio. " (2022, Education Cannot Wait)

Researching Disability-Inclusive Education: Perspectives from Researchers in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.

“Northern scholarship has long dominated the policy discourse on disability-inclusive education. The continued absence of Southern scholarship and overreliance of evidence and perspectives from the North is impeding contextual understanding and action on disability-inclusive education.” (2022, IEI)

Best of UNICEF Research 2021: highlights research on support provided to children with disabilities in Montenegro and how children with developmental disabilities in Palestine experience stigma and discrimination. (2022, UNICEF)

A "landscape review" of ICT for Disability-Inclusive Education (link to pdf, 2022, World Bank)

An in-depth Inclusive Education Resources and Toolkit "reference for all staff working in education programming to mainstream inclusion in their work" (2022, Save the Children)

Evidence brief on overcoming issues of access to digital learning for primary school learners with disabilities in LMICs during Covid-19.

“Primary school learners with disabilities continue to face barriers or continue to be left behind in online/digital learning solutions as a result of the enduring implications of the ongoing COVID-19 restrictions on education. However, access can be improved if, learners with disabilities, parents and their teachers are consulted in the design and implementation of digital learning solutions.” (2022, Disability Evidence Portal)

Joint Statement on the Rights of Children with Disabilities. Adopted by the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). (link to docx, 2022, OHCHR)

A call to action from a coalition of disability organizations on Transforming Education Summit calling for “resilient and inclusive education systems, equitable financing, and the removal of institutional and social barriers to inclusion so every child can benefit from quality education.” (2022, GLAD)

A new book Global Directions in Inclusive Education Conceptualizations, Practices, and Methodologies for the 21st Century. Edited By Matthew J. Schuelka, Suzanne Carrington (2021, Routledge)

In Inclusive education, The case for early identification and early intervention in assistive technology: assistive technology enables learning and so children who need it must be identified as soon as possible. (2021, Assistive Technology Journal)

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Higher Education

Chemistry is Inaccessible: How to Reduce Barriers for Disabled Scientists (2023, Educating All Learners)

Ableism in the academy “Disabled scholars say they often rely on ad hoc agreements to get the accommodations they need to do their jobs. The lack of formal recognition has left many feeling unprotected and unwelcome in the academic workplace.” (2023, UA/AU)

Moving labs: a checklist for researchers with disabilities. (2022, Nature Careers)

A discussion forum on quality higher education for persons with disabilities in low and middle income countries. (2022, CIP)

A review of the anthology Improving Accessible Digital Practices in Higher Education (2022, Disability Studies Community)

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New ILO working paper exposes significant ‘disability wage gap’. “Higher unemployment rates, lower earnings and a tendency towards self-employment characterize the world-of-work experience of many people with disabilities:”

“The paper, which includes new data, finds that those with disabilities who are working are paid 12 per cent less per hour than other employees, on average, and that three-quarters of this gap – 9 per cent – cannot be explained by differences in education, age and type of work. In low and lower middle-income countries this disability wage gap is much larger, at 26 per cent, and almost half cannot be explained by socio-demographic differences.” (Aug, ILO)

How to Make Job Interviews More Accessible (Jun, Harvard Business Review)

Disability over-confident Commitments to inclusion not being put into practice. (Jun, Disability Debrief)

How disability self-ID can transform businesses: “Empowering employees to self-identify as having a disability paves the way for transformative change” (Mar, World Economic Forum)

Disability at sea Could owners and crewing agencies do more to support less able seafarers? Discussion of medical examinations for seafarers. (The Mission to Seafarers)

Key Principles for Authentic Disability Representation Key Principles for Companies Committed to Transformative Progress. (Valuable 500)

Businesses leading the way on disability inclusion a handbook compiling corporate good practices. (2023, Global Business and Disability Network)

The Why and How of National Business and Disability Networks they “can provide non-judgmental and encouraging employers-led platforms at country level. At the end of 2023 [there are] some forty NBDNs.” (Link to pdf, 2023, International Labour Organization)

Working from home has worked for people with disability. The back-to-the-office push could wind back gains. (2023, The Conversation)

Why disability-inclusive employment benefits all of us blog discussing programming promoting inclusive employment. (2023, Sightsavers)

Disability as a Source of Competitive Advantage “Employees consistently told us that working with disabled people fostered a more collaborative culture. ” (2023, Harvard Business Review)

Your Workforce Includes People with Disabilities. Does Your People Strategy? “Most organizations report that their workforce includes relatively few employees with disabilities: just 4% to 7% on average. But in our survey of nearly 28,000 employees in 16 countries, some 25% of people said they have a disability or health condition that limits a major life activity.” (2023, BCG)

The right to work versus the right to retire “Ageism is still pushing older workers out of the labor market” - a report exploring international trends in older persons work and retirement. (2023, Allianz)

Evidence Brief on what are the strategies or models that support youth with disabilities to enter into employment? (2023, Disability Evidence Portal)

ESG and Disability Data white paper a call for inclusive reporting and standardized disability inclusion key performance indicators for businesses. (2023, Valuable 500) See also a blog on why it's needed.

World's Largest Clothing Retailer To Double Its Disability Employment Inditex, the owner of Zara “is committing to dramatically increase employment of people with disabilities throughout its operations.” (2023, Disability Scoop)

Lost in Translation: A global guide to the language of disability: “seeking to apply a single set of language guidelines across a global organisation is often not the best approach. Instead, recognise cultural and linguistic differences and use the language that your audience speaks – whilst seeking to empower the disabled people you work with and serve.” (2022, BDF)

Creating an inclusive culture actions taken by Valuable 500 members for a more inclusive business culture. (2022, Valuable 500)

How can we include people with intellectual disabilities at work? (2022, Sightsavers)

Livelihood support for caregivers of children with developmental disabilities: findings from a scoping review and stakeholder survey. (2022, Disability and Rehabilitation)

Increasing Employment and Quality of Employment Among Youth with Disabilities. Evidence and good practice paper. (2022, DEEP / USAID)

Disability Inclusion in Employment Intensive Investment Programming a stocktaking and way forward on inclusion in public works initiatives. By yours truly. (2022, ILO)

Capacity to Contribute: We must do more to improve the labour market inclusion of people with disability. (2022, The OECD Forum Network)

Note on ensuring that people with disabilities are not bullied at places of work. (2022, Disability Evidence Portal)

The right of persons with disabilities to work and employment General comment by the UN Committee, clarifying what governments need to do to realize the right to work. (2022) See also a summary from European Disability Forum.

Lessons learned on improving access to employment from Kenya and Bangladesh and the i2i project. (2022, CBM UK)

A policy brief on Making Digital Skills Initiatives Inclusive of Young Persons with Disabilities. (2022, Decent Jobs for Youth)

Global Trends Report featuring Technological Innovation for Disability Inclusion. (link to pdf, 2022, Valuable 500)

Achieving disability inclusive employment – Are the current approaches deep enough? A detailed critique of recent programming in international development asking interventions to go deeper:

“Thus, shallow approaches, which do not address deep-seated cultural beliefs and assumptions about disability and disabled people (which are pervasive throughout the ecosystem), are likely to perpetuate the existence of opportunities for the already more privileged elite and further disadvantage the rest.” (2022, Journal of International Development)

Mainstreaming disability inclusive employment in international development: “a key message is that instrumental types of intervention such as policy and practice guidelines, provision of assistive devices and soft skills training for jobseekers with disabilities are necessary but not sufficient to bring about wholesale change towards disability inclusive employment.” (2022, Journal of International Development)

This year's Harkin Summit was held in Belfast (2022, BBC)

New ILO database highlights labour market challenges of persons with disabilities. From 60 countries with available data:

“The labour force participation rate of people with disabilities is very low. Globally, seven in ten persons with disabilities are inactive (that is, neither in employment nor unemployed), compared with four in ten persons without disabilities. While the inactivity rate is higher for both women and men with disabilities than for those without, it is particularly high among women with disabilities.” (2022, ILO)

Equalising access to the labor market for persons with disabilities based on a project in Bangladesh, Kenya, Uganda and Nigeria. The report makes important points on how initiatives to support employment can have negative effects:

“Too often, employment of persons with disabilities has been approached through a narrow lens of placing people into jobs, without securing preconditions for inclusive employment such as inclusive workplace culture, provision of reasonable accommodation, and accessible transportation to work. Worse, persons with disabilities have often been supported to access only a limited range of jobs based on prevailing stereotypes, usually low-wage and perceived low-skill roles, thereby perpetuating stigma and prejudice about what persons with disabilities can or cannot do. This is particularly the case for most marginalized groups, such as persons with intellectual disabilities.”

It also questions the emphasis on the ”business case” when advocating with employers, and argues for a “critical consciousness on disability amongst employers”:

“The business case approach to promote inclusive employment must be rooted in human rights and social justice to ensure that a for-profit argument does not lead to further exclusion of those with high risks of marginalization. Employers need to recognize past and present marginalization and discrimination of persons with disabilities and take active responsibility to transform the labor market to become open, accessible and inclusive for persons with disabilities.” (2022, IDA)

“This programme is nation-building” reflections at the ending of a disability-inclusive employment programme in Nigeria, Kenya, Bangladesh and Uganda. (2022, Inclusive Futures)

A review of effectiveness of interventions for improving livelihood outcomes for people with disabilities in low- and middle-income countries. The review finds studies reporting “positive impacts on livelihood impacts” but given the limited evidence it is hard to conclude about what works. This study calls for more studies. (2022, Campbell Systematic Reviews)

An Inclusive Workplaces Toolkit which gives guidance for employers how to make their workplaces inclusive of people with intellectual disabilities. “Creating a workplace that is more inclusive of people with intellectual disabilities primarily requires small tweaks and behaviour changes within a workplace that
make it easier for everyone to understand and be included in work.” (2022, Inclusion International)

Barriers to employment for people with intellectual disabilities in low- and middle-income countries: Self-advocate and family perspectives. “Self-advocates shared experiences in the focus groups of workplace bullying, mistreatment by supervisors and colleagues and exploitation in the workplace which indicates that supporting people to overcome barriers and get into a job is insufficient for ensuring inclusion.” (2022, Journal of International Development)

The Valuable 500 taking action: Inclusive moments from companies in the Valuable 500 network (2022, Valuable 500)

What is the future of work for people with disabilities? (2022, World Economic Forum)

How can public and civil services support people with disabilities into senior roles? (2022, Global Government Forum)

An ILO report Transforming enterprises through diversity and inclusion. “Overcoming inclusion as a privilege of seniority is key to fully realizing the business benefits it offers” (2022, ILO)

The Valuable 500 Launch World’s First Global Directory of Disability Inclusion Specialists (2022, Valuable 500)

Is It The Yuk Factor? Disabilty Advocacy Is Growing Up. Interview with Susan Scott Parker. (2022, Forbes)

LinkedIn Adds ‘Dyslexic Thinking’ To Skills List In Effort To Destigmatize. Dyslexic thinking being seen as ‘strengths in creative, problem-solving and communication skills’. (2022, The Drum)

A spotlight on Inclusion Breakthroughs in 2021 (2022, Valuable 500)

From the ITCILO with Cornell University, a course on Disability in the Workplace a 90 minutes training. (2022, ILO)

The upcoming G20, hosted by Indonesia will promote employment for persons with disabilities. (2022, Antara News)

What is the current evidence on promoting employment for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities? Recommends supported employment; little evidence from low- and middle-income countries. (2022, Disability Evidence Portal)

ILO Global Business and Disability Network Annual Report 2021 (2022, ILO)

The state of disability engagement survey data showing “employees with disabilities are having a far less favorable experience at work than their non-disabled counterparts. These significant differences are far greater than we have found for other diversity groups such as gender, race and sexual orientation.” (2022, Mercer)

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Overview

BBC 100 Women 2023 among the list of inspiring and influential women are many disabled women from around the world. (2023, BBC)

Be Inclusive: learning report on including women and girls with disabilities in development and humanitarian projects. One of the lessons learned is to interrupt the assumption that participation in a project is in itself to achieve a positive outcome. (2023, Inclusive Futures)

Reaching women and girls with disabilities Practical steps and lessons learned. (2023, Inclusive Futures)

Where is a woman's place? Multimedia feature, where six women share how they’ve defied discrimination and negative attitudes to define their own place in society. (2023)

First anger, then action: why you should sign the Feminist Accessibility Protocol. (2023, Sightsavers)

Ensuring girls and women are not left behind learning series evidence brief. See also eight ways to make sure women and girls with disabilities are not left behind. (2023, LFTW)

Notions around a “Successful Woman with Disabilities”: Exploring voices of girls in Nepal, Malawi and Uganda. “Success for both girls with and without disabilities encompassed not just financial independence and accumulation of material wealth but also personal characteristics such as kindness and human connection.” (2023, Inclusive Education Initiative)

Resource guide on strengthening gender inclusion in disability rights spaces. (2023, Women Enabled)

From Beijing to the CRPD: the missing keystone. (2023, IDA)

The Feminist Accessibility Protocol: “a groundbreaking set of commitments that seek to ensure the inclusion of feminists with disabilities in gender equality spaces.” See notes on what it is, and why we need it. (2022, Women Enabled)

Laws across the world fail to consider disability and gender. A policy brief surveys legislation in 190 economies: only ten of them mention women with disabilities in both their gender equality law and disability rights law. (2022, World Bank)

A short brief from UN Women “addressing the intersection” of Gender, age, and disability. The brief focusses on older women with disabilities, which is very important to do – but I can't help but be disappointed by this brief not reflecting more deeply on how interventions on gender, age, and disability intersect. (2022, UN Women)

A Compass to Steer Our Work in Gender Transformation and Inclusion - on steps to put gender equity into practice. (2022, DRF)

Policy discussion on barriers for disability organizations, and especially women with disabilities, to be involved in discussions on gender equality. (2022, Center for Inclusive Policy)

If you stay quiet, you stay invisible Mama Cash report featuring eight profiles of feminist disability rights activism.

"The activist groups featured in this collection are doing ground-breaking work – often with relatively limited resources. Many of them depended on volunteer labour and worked from their homes before they received their first funding." (2022)

Empowering women and changing minds on CBM Germany efforts to support women with disabilities. (2022, D+C)

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International Women's Day

CEDAW Committee adopts General recommendation No 39 on the rights of Indigenous Women and Girls: 30 references to disability and to indigenous women and girls with disabilities. (2022, IDA)

Sightsavers joining the campaign to #BreakTheBias. (2022, Sightsavers)

CBM Australia stories from women with disabilities. (2022, CBM)

From Light for the World International: Women activists with disabilities say: "#BreakTheBias!" (2022, LFTW)

What does it take to create a space for women and girls with disabilities? content of a webinar. (2022, IDA)

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Overview

Assessing disability inclusion in health systems performance The process of developing and piloting a tool in the Maldives and Zimbabwe. An indicator set that allows description of disability-inclusion in health systems. (Dec, SSM - Health Systems)

Guidance to make telehealth services accessible an implementation toolkit. (Sep, WHO and ITU)

World Alzheimer Report 2024:

“The report highlights how different communities and individuals experience and address dementia stigma, from advocacy in low- and middle-income countries to innovative outreach programmes for youth and marginalised groups. The report underscores the urgent need to address the stigma and discrimination that exist around dementia globally and provides real-world examples of how this can be achieved.” (Sep, Alzheimer's Disease International)

The association between disability and all-cause mortality in low-income and middle-income countries: a systematic review and meta-analysis. “People with disabilities had a two-fold higher mortality rate than people without disabilities in LMICs.” (May, The Lancet Global Health)

Building disability-inclusive health systems

“Our Review documents a broad range of health-care inequities for people with disabilities (eg, lower levels of cancer screening), which probably contribute towards health differentials. We identified 90 good practice examples that illustrate current strategies to reduce inequalities.” (May, The Lancet)

HIV knowledge and access to testing for people with and without disabilities in low- and middle-income countries: evidence from 37 Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys:

“Men and women with disabilities have lower overall HIV knowledge and in particular women with disabilities also indicate lower testing rates.” (Apr, Journal of the International Aids Society)

Best Practices for Cervical Screening for Women with Disabilities: principles for service delivery. (Apr, International Journal of Women's Health)

Health-worker education for disability inclusion in health:

“in many settings, the competence and understanding of reasonable adjustments among health workers are inadequate to provide the same quality of care to people with disabilities as to individuals without disabilities.” (2023, The Lancet)

Report on the Assessment of National Eye Health Strategies on Inclusiveness and Health Equity for Persons with Disabilities (2023, CBM Global)

Do people with disabilities experience disparities in cancer care? A systematic review:

“Compared to people without disabilities, PwD had worse cancer outcomes, in terms of poorer survival and higher overall and cancer-specific mortality. There was also evidence that PwD received poorer quality cancer care, including lower access to state-of-the-art care or curative-intent therapies, treatment delays, undertreatment or excessively invasive treatment, worse access to in-hospital services, less specialist healthcare utilization, less access to pain medications and inadequate end-of-life quality of care.” (2023, PLoS One)

Advocacy Toolkit for Inclusive Eye Health (2023, CBM Global)

Reimagining Universal Health Coverage to Leave No One Behind. Notes from “the first-ever disability- and assistive technology-focused session at the World Health Summit”. (2023, Healthy DEvelopments)

Lack of disability data impedes health care equity. (2023, McKinsey Health Institute and Missing Billion)

IDDC reaction to the Declaration on Universal Health Coverage “A new Political Declaration on Universal Health Coverage that marks some steps forward, but demonstrates the weaknesses of global decision-making in delivering on health equity”. (2023)

What role can community health workers play in disability services in LMICs? Evidence brief. “CHWs can be utilized for education, screening and care for common disabilities and are ideally placed to reach these harder to access populations. In addition, evidence exists for effective disability service provision by CHWs for a range of tasks.” (2023, Disability Evidence Portal)

New dialogues between medical sociology and disability studies
Journal special issue (2023, Sociology of Health & Illness)

All-Inclusive Healthcare Increasing accessibility is key to ensuring that all people, including those who are blind or visually impaired, are not excluded from health services (2023, The Ophthalmologist)

How can mHealth be used to improve the health and functioning of people with disabilities? Evidence brief on healthcare provided by mobile phones. (2023, Disability Evidence Portal)

Disability is central to discrimination in health “Overlooking disability issues is not just a question of omitting one diversity marker among many. Disability brings with it a range of embodied challenges, with implications regarding functional limitations, compromised access to health care and information, and resultant health outcomes.” (2023, The Lancet)

Universal Health Coverage for All Ages An agenda for action. (2023, Age International)

WHO guideline for for meaningful engagement of people living with noncommunicable diseases, and mental health and neurological conditions. (2023, WHO)

Evidence brief on how to remove access barriers to healthcare for people with psychosocial, developmental, and neurological disabilities. (2023, Disability Evidence Portal)

The doctors selling bogus treatments to people facing blindness. (2023, BBC)

Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on people with disabilities and implications for health services research. (2023, Journal of Health Services Research and Policy)

Achieving Universal Health Coverage fit for an ageing world. (2023, HelpAge)

Healthcare has to be healed Debrief feature on the impacts of health inequities and how we take revenge. (2023, Disability Debrief)

Global report on health equity for persons with disabilities. See also the press release. “Health systems should be alleviating the challenges that people with disabilities face, not adding to them.” (2022, WHO)

Reimagining health systems for a billion people with disabilities. (2022, BMZ)

Disability-Inclusive Health Care Systems: Technical Note for World Bank Task Teams. “The guide provides the rationale for disability inclusion, tips for engaging in dialogue, information and examples on disability-inclusive practices and operations, and specific guidance on integrating disability into health service programming and delivery supported by the World Bank.” (2022, World Bank)

Promoting equity in health emergencies through health systems strengthening: “Lessons learned relating to disability inclusion in the COVID-19 pandemic can inform health systems strengthening in recovery efforts, addressing underlying barriers to access and inclusion, and in turn improving preparedness for future health emergencies.” (2022, International Journal for Equity in Health)

Evidence brief on addressing intersectional stigma for people living with disability and chronic infectious diseases. (2022, Disability Evidence Portal)

World Alzheimer Report 2022 Life after diagnosis: Navigating treatment, care and support:

“A surprising number of people living with dementia indicated they had not been offered post-diagnosis support beyond the initial information provided immediately after their diagnosis. In lower-income countries, 45% indicated they had not been offered support, while 55% reported they had. In higher-income countries, although 63% reported having been offered post-diagnosis support, 37% indicated they were offered nothing” (2022, ADI)

Reimagining Health Systems that expect, accept and connect 1 billion people with disabilities. “People with disabilities have 2.4-fold higher mortality rates than those without disabilities and are missing 10 to 20 years of life expectancy.” (2022, Missing Billion)

A report on access and equity in the Future of Virtual Health and Care features discussion and practices of inclusion of persons with disabilities. (2022, Broadband Commission for Sustainable Development)

A focus on disability is necessary to achieve HIV epidemic control:

“People with disabilities often have lower levels of access and adherence to HIV treatment due to barriers with regard to the provision of services (eg, inadequate knowledge among health-care workers and inaccessibility of facilities) and the demand for services (eg, absence of autonomy and awareness of people with disabilities of HIV care needs and service availability). ” (2022, The Lancet HIV)

A selection of videos on rehabilitation from around the world shortlisted for WHO's Health For All Film Festival (2022, WHO)

Disrupting Global Health: From Allyship To Collective Liberation:

“We must understand that many disabled people across the world have experienced public health and biomedicine in violent and oppressive ways; and that that history continues to resonate today. So, we must engage meaningfully with (involve them as stakeholders) disabled people’s voices, opinions, activism, and advocacy,” (2022, Forbes)

Chronically ill face life-or-death challenges due to pandemic shortages. “Millions of chronically ill people struggle to get medical supplies amid global shortages.” (2022, Washington Post)

Lessons from Long COVID: working with patients to design better research:

"Scientific research sets the medical and care agenda for patients with chronic illnesses. It also influences the wider social and economic agenda for people living with these conditions. The more socially and economically disadvantaged people are, the greater the potential influence on their lives. This is a huge responsibility that researchers are only able to fulfil with sharp awareness of the power structures involved in conducting research, with humility and with an openness to see things from different perspectives." (2022, Nature)

Inclusive Medicine and Medical Education: Increasing the Number of Clinicians With Disabilities "Their experiences as patients position them to provide recommendations for promoting patient-centered care and reshaping healthcare systems and delivery processes to increase accessibility and improve patient outcomes." (2022, Global Public Health)

Evidence brief on what works to improve healthcare professionals’ competency on disability: “Negative healthcare professionals’ attitudes and stigma towards people with disabilities remain a major barrier in receiving equitable healthcare services. ” (2022, Disability Evidence Portal)

WHO-ITU global standard for accessibility of telehealth services: “very often telehealth platforms are not compatible with devices such as screen readers that facilitate people with vision impairment to access information, or the lack of captioning or volume control in video conferencing impedes persons who are deaf or hard of hearing to interact with health professionals virtually”. (2022, WHO)

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Rehabilitation

Disability and Road Traffic Accidents: Assessing the Costs and Consequences of Rehabilitation and Living with a Disability Following a Road Traffic Injury:

“We believe that such disabilities are a major (and currently overlooked) component of road traffic safety efforts and disability initiatives and a major concern in global health and international development.” (Aug, WHO)

Centenary declaration from Rehabilitation International to promote “Equal Participation and Well-rounded Development of Persons with Disabilities.” Calls on the United Nations to “establish a World Disability Organization (WDO) to strengthen the coordination and advocacy for disability rights.” (2023, Rehabilitation International)

Guide for rehabilitation workforce evaluation “a suite of resources that can be applied in countries to provide information to support planning and advocacy at the national or subnational level.” (2023, WHO)

Integrating rehab and assistive technology into health systems. How can rehabilitation and health system stakeholders agree on priorities for integrating rehabilitation and AT into health systems? Shared prioritization and planning local actions. (2023, ReLAB-HS)

World Health Assembly commits to boosting global access to rehabilitation. (2023, the Guardian)

WHO board recommendation on Strengthening rehabilitation in health systems (Link to pdf, 2023, WHO)

Provision of rehabilitation for congenital conditions “We argue that the global health community must act to ensure that rehabilitation services to support functioning from birth are well established, accepted and integrated within health systems, and that disability is prioritized within child health.” (2022, Bulletin World Health Organization)

The World Rehabilitation Alliance is open to membership applications. (2022, WHO)

Factsheet on Rehabilitation through a gender lens (2021, ReLAB-HS)

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Food Security and Nutrition

Are children with disabilities more likely to be malnourished than children without disabilities? Evidence from 30 countries:

“Children with disabilities are significantly more likely to experience all forms of malnutrition, making it critical to accelerate efforts to improve disability inclusion within nutrition programmes. Ending all forms of malnutrition will not be achievable without a focus on disability.” (Jun, BMJ Nutrition, Prevention & Health)

How do food insecurity, hunger, and undernutrition affect people with disabilities and how can this problem be addressed? An evidence brief. (2023, Disability Evidence Portal)

Feeding and Disability Resource Bank “A collection of resources to address feeding difficulties and disability inclusion in nutrition programs” (2022, USAID Advancing Nutrition)

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Overview

Unveiling Iolanta: Blindness in Nineteenth-Century Opera. an article exploring “the main tropes of representing and narrating blindness in nineteenth-century opera and fictional literature with a particular emphasis on Tchaikovsky’s 1892 one-act opera Iolanta, with its blind protagonist”. (Jul, City University of New York)

Early Modern Neurodiversity Studies: A Crowd-Sourced Bibliography (Jun, Bradley Irish)

What is disability history the history of? Outlining the development of modern disability history and suggesting methodological directions. (Jun, History Compass)

Disability History Resources a guide to information for the study of disability history, signposting resources from ancient history up to contemporary history. (Jan, Bodleian Libraries Oxford)

Disability and the History of Science an edited volume:

“Some contributors trace the disabling impacts of scientific theories and practices in the contexts of war, factory labor, insurance, and colonialism; others excavate racial and settler ableism in the history of scientific facts, protocols, and collections; still others query the boundaries between scientific, lay, and disability expertise.” (Chicago)

'Disability and Labour in the Twentieth Century: Historical and Comparative Perspectives' a book review:

“In the epilogue, Monika Baar explains that the ideological divide that existed between socialist Eastern European and democratic Western countries in the postwar period was less structure forming than often assumed and that the different welfare state regimes had provoked similar development trajectories on the poor employment situation for people with disabilities” (2023, H-Disability)

The Mütter and More: Why We Need to be Critical of Medical Museums as Spaces for Disability Histories. (2023, Disability Visibility Project)

Disabled people were Holocaust victims, too: they were excluded from German society and murdered by Nazi programs. (2023, The Conversation)

Moments in Disability History a timeline with highlights over the past five thousand years. (2023, Disability Social History Project)

From the wheelchair-using Black Panther to the ‘cripple suffragette’ – 10 heroes of the disabled rights movement. (2022, the Guardian)

A new book on Prosthetics and Assistive Technology in Ancient Greece and Rome. (2022, Cambridge University Press)

Reader's Block a book on the history of reading differences. (2022, Combined Academic Publishers)

Wheelchairs Through Time A visual history of the wheelchair: a look through thousands of years covering palanquins, tricycles, wheelbarrows, thrones, and much more. (2022, Wayland's Workshop)

50th Anniversary of the Independent Living Movement (2022, ENIL)

State of the Field: Disability History. An overview of many strengths of a growing field, and reflections on some of the gaps, which include:

“As impressive as disability scholarship on activism is, its lack of chronological depth obscures the full range of disabled people's political actions. Most studies focus on the last one hundred years, especially the period after the emergence of the modern DRM in the 1970s. This limits our understanding of disabled people's activism by implying that their engagement in meaningful political action is a relatively recent phenomenon, concerned primarily with the fight for disability rights. Yet, disabled people have a longer and richer history of activism than this. From factory reform to women's suffrage, they have fought for many causes, often taking up prominent roles in the process.” (2022, History)

Book review of Disease and Disability in Medieval and Early Modern Art and Literature (2022, H-Disability)

Global Stamp Issues a book exploring postage stamps marking the United Nations International Year of Disabled People, 1981. (2022, Digital Disability) See a write up and samples on Disability Arts Online.

Review of Hearing Happiness: Deafness Cures in History “a spell-binding book of research and stories” (2022, H-Disability)

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Remembering Judy Heumann

Heumann nature: a short video on the life and legacy of disability rights activist Judy Heumann (2023, Ford Foundation)

Judy Heumann Mentored the Next Generation of Disability Advocates. (2023, New Mobility)

The World Mourns the Passing of Judy Heumann (2023, Judy Heumann)

Honoring Judy Heumann’s Legacy a tribute from Michael Ashley Stein:

‘Ultimately and thoroughly, Judy was a teacher. Completely fearless, she eagerly approached anyone at any time whenever she spied a “teachable moment.” Judy would speed up to them in her power wheelchair and insist, “Excuse me, can we talk for a minute?” What followed was invariably a polite, concise, but direct lesson on how that individual could alter their behavior to be more equitable, if not disability-empowering, in similar circumstances in the future.’ (2023, Harvard Law Review)

Disability rights activist Judy Heumann dies at 75. A rich tribute and obituary by Joseph Shapiro. (2023, NPR)

Our movement is in mourning. On the Debrief: remembering Judy Heumann, and how she changed us. (2023, Disability Debrief)

Unafraid, unbowed, and unapologetic: The life and legacy of Judy Heumann. “This is how Judy changed the world: Person by person, from the corridors of New York City’s public schools to the streets of Berkeley to the halls of power around the globe.” (2023, Ford Foundation)

Remembering Judy Heumann tributes and memories. (2023, Women Enabled International)

Judy Heumann obituary: Disability rights activist who helped shape global protocols and played a decisive role in fighting discrimination in the US. (2023, the Guardian)

Human Rights Watch Mourns Loss of Judy Heumann. (2023, Human Rights Watch)

Obituary: Judy Heumann, Who Led the Fight for Disability Rights, Dies at 75 (2023, New York Times)

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Overview

Review, Adapt, and Action Learning Laboratories (RAAL Labs) a practical guide to “boost humanitarian actors’ skills so they can adapt their programming tools and processes to be more disability inclusive”. (Sep, HI)

Inclusive feeding and disability resources for nutrition practices a tool for screening, management and follow-up for frontline health workers. (Sep, Global Nutrition Cluster)

Inclusion of Persons with Disabilities in Anticipatory Action a report on findings and lessons learned. “It emphasizes the critical need for inclusive practices to protect and empower persons with disabilities before, during, and after disasters.” (Mar, CBM)

Technical Support and Capacity Development of Humanitarian Actors linked to Protection Clusters, a good practices paper. (Mar, Global Protection Cluster)

Facilitating access to assistive technology and rehabilitation. Guidance to help prioritize and plan around the provision of assistive technology and rehabilitation services in settings where UNHCHR works. (UNHCR)

Disability equity within humanitarian preparedness, response and recovery “This briefing paper explores the context around disability inclusion in different elements of humanitarian action and provides recommendations and case studies of CBM Australia’s programming” (2023, CBM Australia)

Checklist to Ensure the Meaningful Engagement of Young Persons with Disabilities in Humanitarian Action (2023, UNFPA)

People with disabilities must be included in humanitarian action interview with Karen Alexander (2023, CBM Australia)

Humanitarian emergencies and situations of risk for women and girls and gender diverse persons with disabilities. (2023, Women Enabled International)

Free E-learning Course on Disability-Inclusive Humanitarian Action for Humanitarians. (2023, HI)

Profile of Aleema Shivji her work in humanitarian response and inclusion of persons with disabilities. (2023, The New Humanitarian)

Crisis response for refugee children with disability: New book published. (2023, ENIL)

Guidance note Qualitative Assessment Approaches for the Protection of Children with Disabilities Within Humanitarian Contexts. (2023, Alliance CHPA)

IDA-UNHCR Strategic Collaboration in 2022: Key Steps Towards Inclusion and Participation. (2023, IDA)

Included, Every Step of the Way Upholding the rights of migrant and displaced children with disabilities. (2023, UNICEF)

People with Disabilities in Humanitarian Emergencies and Situations of Risk a policy submission to the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. (2023, Human Rights Watch)

Key principles and recommendations for inclusive cash and voucher assistance (2023, Calp Network)

Exploring the intersectionality of International Refugee Protection and the 2006 Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. “This paper highlights the multitude of barriers persons with disabilities experience in obtaining refugee protection.” (2023, IDA)

A review of evidence on disability inclusive Early Childhood Development and Education in Humanitarian Settings. (2023, Institute of Development Studies)

Disability and Inclusion Survey by IOM of IDP sites in Montepuez (2023, Relief Web)

Disability-Inclusive Humanitarian Action Toolkit Operational guidance on including children with disabilities in humanitarian response (2023, UNICEF)

The good and promising practices on disability inclusive humanitarian action. an illustrated selection. (2023, Humanity and Inclusion with DRG)

Advancing disability-inclusive action on internal displacement. “This report represents a first step toward addressing the paucity of data on IDPs with disabilities.” (2022, IDMC)

Disability and Older Age Inclusion in Humanitarian Action: Innovation Catalogue. See also notes on its launching. (2022, elrha)

IASC Guidance, Addressing Suicide in Humanitarian Settings. (2022, IASC)

Discussion on inclusion of persons with disabilities in humanitarian affairs with Ricardo Pla of UNHCHR, on Ukraine and beyond. (In Spanish, 2022, En Marcha)

A scoping review of research on adolescents with disabilities’ experiences of COVID-19 and other humanitarian emergencies in low- and middle-income countries. (2022, Global Health Action)

Disabled refugee students included and visible in education. Case studies of challenges and opportunities in Uganda, Zimbabwe, and South Africa. (2022, Disabled Refugees Included)

Around the world, refugees with disabilities face an uphill battle (2022, Equal Times)

Inclusion and exclusion in humanitarian action: findings from a three-year study. A call to treat inclusion more holistically. Important reflections on a ”fragmentation of approaches”, and how it creates a siloed approach:

“In many cases, inclusion is still understood in categorical terms, focusing on specific groups of people or categories of need, such as gender, people with disabilities, people with diverse SOGIESC, religious and ethnic minorities, and beyond. This has a number of implications for how inclusion is operationalised in practice. First, seeing inclusion largely as a proliferation of different categories all requiring their own specific approaches has led to a sense of being overwhelmed and being asked to do too many things at once [... Also] it can have the unintended effect of creating hierarchies between different marginalised or vulnerable groups in terms of what or who gets prioritised. [.. . ] Breaking things down into categories can reduce inclusion to a question of ‘marketability’ in terms of what gets funded, with ‘women and girls’ competing with ‘older people’ [...] Absent altogether from these hierarchies are axes of inclusion that do not fall neatly into categories because they are not always identity-based or easily visible – such as race, social class or stigmatised occupations. In general, these aspects tend to lack the same kinds of communities of expertise and advocacy that have forcefully pushed for greater sensitivity to other aspects of inclusion over the years at both the global and response levels.” (2022, ODI)

Under the Radar: Surviving Wars With a Disability:

“I was like a double-burden to my mom. The pressure was so much that one day, she decided to get rid of me.” She threw him into a shallow body of water and was ready to move on. But Mauot’s sisters refused to leave him behind. They picked him up as he cried, until their mother relented.” (2022, Pass Blue)

UNHCR 2021 report on Age, Gender and Diversity Accountability “2021 marked an important turning point in UNHCR’s work on persons with disabilities.”:

“Enhanced reporting by operations allowed UNHCR to better capture the support provided to persons with disabilities. Cumulatively, UNHCR operations supported 479,815 persons with disabilities worldwide, including at least 7,615 children.” (2022, UNHCR)

Humanitarian Networks and Partnerships Week Resources about Inclusion (2022, HNPW)

IDMC 2022 Global Report on Internal Displacement includes a spotlight on displaced children with disabilities and promising practices. (2022)

More disasters, less inclusion: will transformation start in Bali? Calls from IDA for the Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction to empower persons with disabilities. (2022, PR Web)

Statement Adopted by the Thematic Group on Disaster Risk Reduction and Climate Action for the Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction. (2022, IDA)

People with disabilities face 10-40% higher costs does Cash and Voucher Assistance account for this? “The way transfer values are calculated for people with disabilities must change” (2022, Calp Network)

All Under One Roof: disability-inclusive shelter and settlements in emergencies. Technical guidance for inclusion to improve on how “post disaster shelter and settlement responses are invariably designed to provide standardised solutions to an affected community”. (2022, Global Shelter Cluster)

Introductory video to the IASC Guidelines on inclusive humanitarian has been translated into Arabic, Bangla, French, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Swahili, Ukrainian and Russian. (2022, EDF)

"No One is Spared" Report on Older People at Heightened Risk in Conflict. Including disturbing examples of violence. (2022, Human Rights Watch)

International Rescue Committee UK: Step by step – our work to become inclusive. (2022, EDF)

Perhaps familiar to some of you, but this month I learned that physical rehabilitation centres are one of the ways that humanitarian impact bonds are being used. The idea of the impact bond is that you pay for results and they might be a means to secure different sources of funding. (2022, Government Outcomes Lab)

An overall view on Aid policy trends to watch in 2022 Diversifying aid, its staff and its workplaces are one of the key themes to explore this year. The article puts this under the "decolonisation agenda" but there are many examples where genuine gains in diversity and inclusion are made without touching colonial dynamics. (2022, The New Humanitarian)

CBM's Humanitarian Hands on Tool is now available in more languages including Ukrainian. (2022, CBM)

UNHCR's Approach to Forcibly Displaced and Stateless Persons with Disabilities. Most of this brief describes the organization's approach to disability inclusion in general. (2022, UNHCR)

Report on the role of Cash and Voucher Assistance in Increasing Equity and Inclusion for Girls and Children with Disabilities in Education in Emergencies. Report speaks to how this assistance “primarily addresses” the demand-side barriers to education in emergencies. (2022, SDC and others)

Training Package on Strengthening Protection of Persons with Disabilities in Forced Displacement (2022, UNHCR)

Good to see these six reflections on Cash and Voucher Assistance in 2021 that shows the place of disability-inclusive cash assistance in a "patchy" shift to putting people at the centre of work. (2021, CALP Network)

December Newsletter from the Reference Group on Inclusion of Persons with Disabilities in Humanitarian Action (2021, IDA)

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Migration

Not Invisible: Strengthening Protection for Children with Disabilities in Migration and Displacement. (Jul, USCRI)

Empowering Disabled Refugees: Mustafa Rifat's experiences navigating the refugee resettlement process as a disabled refugee, and his concrete recommendations for resettlement agencies, disability services organizations, (2023, Down to the Struts)

A Scoping Review of Needs and Barriers to Achieving A Livable Life among Refugees with Disabilities: Implications for Future Research, Practice, and Policy. (2022, Journal of Evidence-Based Social Work)

For Many Disabled People, a Battle to Stay in Australia or New Zealand (2022, New York Times)

Crossing the Border: How Disability Civil Rights Protections are “powerful tools for ensuring that disabled asylum-seekers have access to the protection and services they need in the U.S. immigration system.” (2022, American Progress)

Data on disability and migration – what do we know? estimates of 12 million displaced persons around the world being disabled, and emerging practices on data. (2022, Data 4 SDGs)

Migration data portal: Disability and human mobility (2022, Migration Data Portal)

Disability-inclusive data in migration: How far have we come? (2022, Migration Data Portal)

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Overview

Towards Dignity and Autonomy a report on personal assistance policies across nine countries. (Mar, ENIL and ILO)

Good practices of support systems enabling community inclusion of persons with disabilities (2023, OHCHR)

Care and support is about human rights reflections on the International Day of Care and Support. (2023, OHCHR)

“Support” as “care”. a response to the OHCHR report on support systems for community inclusion of persons with disabilities:

“we express our concerns here, that this report A/HRC/52/52 does not fulfil the noble mandate of the OHCHR, is not compliant with the CRPD nor does it advance our advocacy on community inclusion” (Link to pdf, 2023, TCI Global)

How do we look after each other? On the Debrief: rethinking care systems with policy and personal experience (2023, Disability Debrief)

Report on the support systems to ensure community inclusion

“The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated discussions on care systems; such discussions recognize the need to transform traditional care models so that they protect equally the rights of those receiving and providing care. [This report] highlights the human right of persons with disabilities to be included in the community within the current global developments on care, addressing in this context the specific support needs of persons with disabilities for community inclusion” (2023, OHCHR)

See also extracts and key points from the report (Inclusion Europe).

Guidelines on deinstitutionalization, UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities guidance to governments to realize independent living and deinstitutionalization. (2022, OHCHR) See also:

• Discussion of escaping institutions and their shadows (Disability Debrief)
• Commentary and explanatory video (IDA)

A discussion paper on the Disability Support Gap: Community support systems for persons with disabilities in low- and middle-income countries (Link to PDF, 2022, CIP)

A report on CBM's work on Community Based Inclusive Development (2022, CBM)

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Conditions in Institutions

Deinstitutionalization as Reparative Justice: A Commentary on the Guidelines on Deinstitutionalization, including in Emergencies (Mar, Laws)

Joint Position on Large Foster Care

‘“Large” foster care, where large numbers of unrelated children are placed in one household, must not be considered a form of “family-based” care and is not acceptable as a component of state policy.’ (Mar, Global Coalition on Deinstitutionalization)

Over 450,000 children institutionalized across Europe, Central Asia. A UNICEF investigation “reveals that children with disabilities account for up to 87 per cent of those in care, where data is available.” (Jan, UN)

Redressing the harms of segregation and institutionalisation. Linda Steele and Gerard Quinn in conversation:

“Institutionalization continues to shape the present because we have policies and laws that replicate many of the dynamics of institutions. There might not be big buildings, but we have group homes. Which are smaller residential settings where people with disability continue to be congregated and segregated from the community, continue to have little choice in the supports they receive in their daily activities. They might not have a lot of privacy. They might not be able to choose who they live with. And they're also exposed to... Violence in those settings as well. We also have laws such as laws that allows sterilization and sub minimum wages and restrictive practices and forced mental health treatment. And many of the practices that happened in the big buildings in the institutions still carry on in the community as well.” (2023, Disability Dialogues)

Feeding practices of children within institution-based care: A retrospective analysis of surveillance data. “Feeding difficulties are common among children living in institution-based care (IBC), particularly but not exclusively among those children with disabilities.” (2022, Maternal & Child Nutrition)

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Empowering Voices: Advocating for indigenous people with disabilities worldwide, a submission to the UN. Focused on case studies from Kenya, Brazil, Nepal and Bangladesh:

“Persons with disabilities within indigenous communities experience disproportionate disadvantages because of the intersectional discrimination they face on account of multiple axes of oppression. Many disability activists from indigenous communities stress the importance of analyzing the historical context and its ongoing impacts, specifically slavery and colonialism. Within indigenous communities, disability cannot be extricated and analyzed outside the context of psychosocial disabilities and intergenerational trauma caused by colonial violence and oppression.” (Feb, Minority Rights Group)

Intersectionality is a Practice: Inclusive Funding Must Resource Disability and Indigenous Rights. (2022, Cultural Survival)

Indigeneity and disability: A special edition from Disability Studies Quarterly on Kinship, Place, and Knowledge-Making. (2022)

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Overview

What went wrong? Exclusive coverage on the Debrief of the crisis at the International Disability Alliance and exploration of the changes needed in disability leadership. (Sep, Disability Debrief)

How can we build in disability inclusion at grassroots levels? Advice from organisations in Bangladesh, Kenya and Nepal. (Aug, CBM UK)

Localization and organisations of persons with disabilities: case studies on inclusion in humanitarian funding. One of the key takeaways is:

“Local OPD funding landscape is done as ‘indirectly as possible’. Donors prefer to fund project delivery INGO intermediaries. These intermediaries channel their funding to national umbrella OPDs/federations that then channel funding to other OPDs who are engaged to deliver smaller bits of the project. The amount that trickles from donors to smaller OPDs is small as huge chunks of budgets are retained by the INGOs and national OPD associations.” (Aug, GLAD)

Interview with Natalia Guala Beathyate director of ONCE Social Group and expert on the Committee of Rights of Persons with Disabilities. (In Spanish, Jul, Cermi)

Women Enabled Strategic Plan 2024 – 2028 “The Future of Gender Equality is Inclusive – The Future of Disability Rights is Feminist” (Jun, Women Enabled)

Embracing disability in human rights defense

“The human rights movement must create the conditions where diverse people, including those with disabilities, can safely engage in spaces for public participation. This means developing new ways of organizing that leverages the talents and contributions of those defending human rights.” (May, Alliance)

Guidance material on reporting to UN Human Rights Mechanisms for Organizations of Persons with Disabilities. (May, IDA and DPOD)

Mary Keogh new chair of the International Disability and Development Consortium (IDDC) (May, CBM Global)

If Momentum is Lost, Persons with Disabilities Will Fall Further Behind. Proposals to ensure inclusion of persons with disabilities in the Summit of the Future processes and beyond. (Apr, SDG Knowledge Hub | IISD)

Everything about us with us Zhang Haidi, president of Rehabilitation International (RI) and former chairperson of China Disabled Persons' Federation:

“hopes to further improve coordination among governments and international organizations, calling for the establishment of the World Disability Organization under the U.N. framework”. (Mar, China.org.cn)

Community-based rehabilitation for people with psychosocial disabilities in low- and middle-income countries: a systematic review of the grey literature. (Mar, International Journal of Mental Health Systems)

Pact for the future: Stakeholder Group of Persons with Disabilities calls for specific references to disability. (Mar, IDA)

We need to talk Does the disability movement need a strategic reset? Debrief feature exploring the crisis at the International Disability Alliance (IDA). (Feb, Disability Debrief)

Partnering with OPDs: What can we learn? an interview with Kimber Bialik of Inclusion International. “We challenge organizations to consider how their ways of working might be excluding people.” (Feb, Inklusion Leben)

Ambassadors of Social Progress A History of International Blind Activism in the Cold War. “Examines the ways in which blind activists from the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe entered the postwar international disability movement and shaped its content and its course.” (Feb, Cornell University Press)

Power does not shift easily reflections on ADD International's journey to transform the organization, which includes reducing its size:

“Our overall aim of disrupting the dominant funding system means no longer centring our own growth. On joining ADD, we observed that over time the ‘professionalisation’ of its work had led to more and more of the organisation’s resources being invested in ADD doing things.” (Jan, Alliance)

Our Model: Disability Rights Fund Theory of Change & 5-Year Strategic Plan (DRF)

Cultivating Hope: 15 Years of DRF & the Road Ahead. (2023, Disability Rights Fund)

NewSpecial edition on colleagues with disabilities making an inclusive United Nations. (Link to pdf, 2023, NewSpecial)

Women Enabled International 2022 Annual Report marking their 10th anniversary. (2023, Women Enabled International)

Putting meaningful engagement with organisations of people with disabilities into practice a short video. (2023, Sightsavers)

Disability, CBR & Inclusive Development Summer issue of the journal. (2023, DCID)

ILO Disability Inclusion Policy and Strategy (2020-23): Final thematic evaluation. “Overall, the evaluation found the ILO has leveraged the launch of the UNDIS to launch and implement a Policy and Strategy that has helped to further attention to disability inclusion within the Office. Progress has been made in several areas, but much remains to be done.” (2023, ILO)

Meaningful inclusion of women and girls with disabilities in development programmes. (2023, Inclusive Futures)

Gender Equality, Disability and Social Inclusion analysis Good practice note. (2023, DFAT Australia)

The Center for Inclusive Policy’s Strategic Plan 2024-2026. Debrief partners CIP lay out their strategic vision as a "think and do tank". (2023, CIP)

Shifting Power: Movement-Led Technical Assistance in Action! (2023, Disability Rights Fund)

Re-thinking disability inclusion for the SDGs (2023, UNDP)

UNPRPD Annual Report 2022 UN Partnership on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities' Annual Report. (2023)

From Crises to Solutions: Disability Rights Fund 2022 annual report on Building Diverse Movements for Inclusion (2023, DRF)

Do we practice what we preach? A Debrief feature on the discrimination we face while advocating on disability. (2023, Disability Debrief)

Dialogue of the Special Rapporteurs: a conversation between Catalina Devandas and Gerard Quinn. (2023, Gerard Quinn)

G20 process gets separate group to mainstream persons with disabilities within civil society engagement: Disability, Equity and Justice. (2023, Times of India)

World Food Programme Disability Inclusion Helpdesk: a learning brief on its contributions to mainstreaming disability within the organization. (2023, CBM Global)

How can building collaborative alliances support disability inclusion? (2023, Inclusive Futures)

Discussion on increasing the engagement between disabled people's organizations and the United Nations (2023, Center for Inclusive Policy)

UNICEF Disability Inclusion Policy and Strategy (DIPAS) 2022-2030. Commitments to increase resourcing, employment and more. (2023, UNICEF) See also coverage on the Lancet.

The Zero Project 2023 celebrated. See the session recordings and this year's awardees. (2023, Zero Project)

CBM Global’s Power Shift Journey: “The diversity of views received were not always easy to reconcile or harmonise – a fair reflection of the diversity of the disability movement.” (2023, CBM Global)

Evaluation of Ford's Disability Inclusion Initiative “Since 2018, we have invested more than $70 million toward projects and organizations focused on disability and an additional $250 million to social justice organizations including disability within their broader work.” See also the lessons for other grant makers. (2023, Ford Foundation)

It is time for a radical rethink on how we distribute funding in the disability rights movement. (2023, Bond)

A guide to building successful partnerships between INGOs and disability organisations. (2023, Inclusive Futures)

Situation Analyses of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Lessons and Conclusions from Twenty-Six Countries. (2022, UNPRPD)

The third report on Disability Inclusion in the United Nations system reviews work done in 2021:

“As we move into the fourth year of the Strategy’s implementation, it is clear that staff at all levels, supported by their leadership, are taking action to advance disability inclusion across programmes and operations. While findings demonstrate that significant progress has been made since 2019, a majority of benchmarks set by the Strategy to achieve the transformative change on disability inclusion are still not being met.” (2022, UN)

Gerard Quinn interviews Charlotte McClain-Nhlapo, discussing the World Bank & disability inclusion. (2022, Gerard Quinn)

Communique from the GLAD Network 2022 Annual General Meeting. (2022, GLAD)

A podcast discussion with Gopal Mitra on the the UN Disability Inclusion Strategy. (2022, Gerard Quinn)

Inclusive Participation Toolbox Supports Disability Inclusive Planning. (2022, CBM)

Inclusion of persons with disabilities in project planning a short guide. (Link to pdf, 2022, GIZ)

Data Quick Guide Towards Disability Inclusive Programme Monitoring (2022, DCDD)

Stakeholder Group of Persons with Disabilities for Sustainable Development Position Paper for the High-Level Political Forum “governments must redouble their efforts to reach the most marginalized and furthest behind to implement policies and programs to address the discrimination and disadvantage faced by persons with disabilities. ” (link to pdf, 2022, Stakeholder Group)

A scoping review on Community Support for Persons with Disabilities in Low- and Middle-Income Countries. (2022, Environmental Research and Public Health)

Organizations of Persons with Disabilities Engagement Officer as a medium to strengthening the disability movement (2022, IDA)

Disability Rights Funds welcomes Catalina Devandas as Executive Director. (2022, DRF) Cata was the first person I interviewed on the Debrief to reflect on her years as Special Rapporteur on Disability.

The UNPRPD Annual Narrative and Financial Report 2021 (link to pdf, 2022, UNPRPD)

Evidence digest on youth and disability inclusion (2022, SD Direct)

Reflections on how racism in the aid sector relates to persons with disabilities and measures that can be taken to localize work on disability: “Any capacity-building programme should be locally and culturally designed and managed by a local CSO/DPO on its premises to build a disability movement locally. ” (2022, Mosharraf Hossein)

Lessons from our partnerships with local organisations of persons with disabilities:

“You are supporting with resources. We are getting job done. We should be paid in the same way, with same remuneration – that’s what equal partnership is!” (2022, Bond)

Pocket guide to safeguarding persons with disabilities and/or mental health conditions in programming. See also for safeguarding in workplaces doing humanitarian and development work. (2022, RSH)

An evaluation of CBM Australia's Inclusion Advisory Group dedicated to advising partner organizations on disability inclusion, and an important model of how capacity on disability inclusion might be provided. (2022, CBM Australia)

In-depth conversation with World Bank Global Disability Advisor Charlotte Vuyiswa McClain-Nhlapo. “It is clear to me that my early exposure to racism and inequality influenced my life’s work for social justice and equality for all.” (2022, Allfie)

LFTW Fact Sheet on Intersectionality Unveiling intersecting discrimination (2022, LFTW)

Tracking disability inclusion in multilateral organizations a report on how inclusion changed between 2018 and 2022.

“Although this report finds certain progress regarding the monitoring of disability inclusion since the first Global Disability Summit, particularly on strategies and commitments, the findings discuss how the step from ambitions to documentation of successful disability inclusion continues to be limited.” (2022, Fafo)

Discussion on how development partners can ensure engagement of organizations of persons with disabilities in CIP's question of the month. (2022, CIP)

A new issue of Disability, CBR & Inclusive Development featuring a lively editorial on the need for local solutions. (2022, DCIDJ)

Engagement of organizations of persons with disabilities: A discussion paper finding that “OPDs are more consulted than before, levels of participation remain insufficient.” Explores the gaps as well as good practices, particularly around investment in supporting representative organizations. (2022, IDA)

Working towards a more inclusive society: Five stories of how the UN is working with partners to advance disability inclusion. (2022, UNSDG)

The pursuit of authentic partnership: personal reflections from the executive director of CBM Global on the difference between partnership and imposition. (2022, CBM Global)

See the CIP question of the month on How civil society can work with large development partners and financial institutions to address disability inclusion. Hosted by the World Bank's lead on disability. (2022)

Innovation to Inclusion Learning Update (link to pdf, 2022, Leonard Cheshire)

World Federation of the Deaf review of 2021. (2022, WFD)

A survey on the situation of persons with deafblindness (2022) (2022, WFDB)

Intersectionality Resource Guide and Toolkit An Intersectional Approach to Leave No One Behind

'This does not require an “add and stir” approach, but rather a full shift in mindset—one that is willing to sit with the discomfort that comes with exploring the relational nature of power and discrimination both within and beyond UN systems.' (2022, UN Women)

Lessons learned from partnerships with organisations of persons with disabilities (2022, CBM Global)

The High Level Political Forum will be in July: see the position paper on how it relates to disability and more from the Stakeholder Group of Persons with Disabilities. (2022, IDA)

UN Women experience with Disability Inclusion Markers. (2022, UN Women)

Reflecting a Movement’s Principles in Grantmaking Structure Evidence on the Benefits of Participation (2021, DRF)

Light for the World 2021: The year in review (2021, LFTW)

See You Strategic Framework 2021-2024 Light for the World Netherlands is now See You: 'We see our values reflected in the Bible, as well as represented in the UNCRPD' (link to pdf, 2021, See You)

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Global Disability Summit

Welcome to our inaugural newsletter for the Global Disability Summit 2025! (Aug, GDS Secretariat)

Progress on Implementation of Commitments since the Global Disability Summit 2022:

“Self-reported data indicates that one-tenth of the 1,412 GDS2022 commitments have been delivered. Delivery of the remaining GDS2022 commitments is also far advanced, with one third of the commitments reported to be at least half complete.” (Jan, Global Disability Summit)

Words are not enough “One year on from the Global Disability Summit 2022, we urgently call on global governments to uphold disability rights and make their summit commitments a reality” (2023, Sightsavers)

Global Disability Summit 2022 Report (2022, IDA)

Will the 2022 Global Disability Summit result in a more equal world? As well highlighting the achievements of the summit, a concern raised that "overall, there aren’t enough commitments with concrete financing attached. " (2022, Sightsavers)

Series of videos featuring youth with disabilities. (2022, IDA)

CBM Global's Disability Summit Commitments See also their expectations and commitments. (2022)

3 things to expect from the Global Disability Summit "The answers are there already – use them!" - agree with the sentiment that we have under-used solutions, but disagree we know "what it takes to implement the CRPD". (2022, LFTW)

Humanity and Inclusion (HI) commitments And call to action. (2022, Humanity and Inclusion)

Save the Children commits to ensure children with disabilities get fairer treatment. See also discussion of meaningful engagement. (2022)

Sightsavers’ campaign petition for the Global Disability Summit hits 30,000 signatures from 111 countries. (2022, Sightsavers)

Another talkshop? Raises concerns, referring to concrete examples, about initiatives for disability inclusion "without the direct involvement of disabled people". Organizations working on disability rights "are yet to recognize the power of lived-experience and professional representation within their leadership ranks and thus continue making decisions around disability rights issues without the participation of disabled people". (2022, Fred Ouko)

Data and the Global Disability Summit: how to make sure commitments lead to change (2022, Sightsavers)

Girl's Education Challenge Leave No Girl Behind Updating our commitments to the most marginalized girls. (link to pdf, 2022)

Guterres opens Global Disability Summit with inclusivity call. Strange to see 'handicap' used in this article. (2022, UN)

We must commit to inclusive education for people with disabilities (2022, World Education Blog)

USAID commits to a Disability-Inclusive Future (2022, short youtube, EducationLinks)

Light for the World committing to change. (2022)

Dutch Coalition on Disability and Development Commitments (2022)

First day of Global Disability Summit results in ground-breaking commitments to disability rights from global leaders. (2022, IDA)

An Accessible Future for Persons with Disabilities a beautiful multimedia feature on the World Bank's work on disability around the world, and their commitments for the summit. (2022, World Bank)

Upcoming disability summit must be a turning point, position from President of Ghana, PM of Norway, chief of WHO, and president of the International Disability Alliance. (2022, BMJ)

On Humanitarian response, a call for commitments to disability inclusion (2022, Global Disability Summit)

Road to Inclusion a podcast covering many themes relating to the Global Disability Summit. (link to youtube, also available on Spotify and other platforms, 2022, Atlas Alliance)

Get ready for the Global Disability Summit The main events are 14-17th Feb, with the youth summit followed by the civil society forum and then the summit itself.

Plenty of events on the way into this as well: see the event guide. covering the thematic, regional and side events.

See also the master guide (2022, Global Disability Summit)

You can follow the GDS on social media and with its social media toolkit. Hashtags will be #CommitToChange and #GDS2022. Suggested prompt is “I believe in a disability-inclusive future because…” (2022, Global Disability Summit)

International Summit On Disability And Health Aims To Achieve #HealthForAll (2022, Health Policy Watch)

Ensure disability inclusion is not just a tick mark (2022, Humanity and Inclusion)

Recommendations from the Thematic Workshop on Inclusive Education (2022, Global Disability Summit)

Four priorities in inclusive education for the Global Disability Summit 2022 Collection of evidence in each priority. (2022, Cambridge)

The next summit will be hosted by Jordan and Germany scheduled for Berlin, 2025. (2022)

The Global Disability Summit closed. See the co-chair summary. Watch recordings from both days or browse the portal of commitments made. The Summit reiterated the 2018 charter for change. (2022)

Preceding the Summit was the GDS Youth Summit 2022 which launched a call for action for organizations and youth with disabilities to commit to. (2022)

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Procedural Accommodation Needed for Persons with Psychosocial or Intellectual Disabilities in Criminal Justice Processes. (Jun, Health and Human Rights Journal)

Transitional Justice and Inclusiveness: Where Does Disability Fit In? “What this article specifically accentuates is the need for inclusive storytelling spaces within transitional justice processes and it highlights in this regard the unexplored significance of multi-sensory storytelling.” (2023, University of Birmingham)

A review on corruption and the equal enjoyment of rights for persons with disabilities:

“People with disabilities are exposed to abuse by those that provide care, the embezzlement of funds intended to benefit persons with disabilities and extortion in the process of acquiring a disability certificate. [...] This impact of this corruption is caused, enabled or exacerbated by discrimination against persons with disabilities.“ (2022, U4 Anti-Corruption Resource Centre)

Evidence brief on promoting effective implementation of legal capacity as outlined in Article 12 of the UN CRPD in Low and Middle-Income Countries. (2022, Disability Evidence Portal)

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Vision Impairment: Science, art, and lived experience. An open access book which “blends individual stories, key research findings and the most recent scientific discoveries to present an informative yet optimistic overview of living with sight loss.” (Jan, UCL Press)

Eddie Ndopu on How Disability Helped Him Rethink Excellence

“The honest truth is that the more barriers that I have been able to break down as a person with a disability, the more barriers have awaited me on the other side.” (2023, Time)

Are Blind ‘Superpowers’ Another Caricature? A medical screening program in India reinforces belief in blind "superpowers." What does the science say? (2023, TD)

Yes, Disabled People Can Be Parents stories from disabled parents. (2023, Women Enabled International)

Naming Disability Including Disability Issue 2 explores “the power play between stigma and identity”. (2023, Including Disability)

Disability and Technology? No, Disability as Technology. "My argument is, rather, that technology is a constitutive mechanism of disability, that is, disability is a fully-fledged technology (artifact) itself, a complex and complicated apparatus of power, a composite of technologies and other artifacts." (2023, Biopolitical Philosophy)

An issue of the Massachusetts Review dedicated to Disability Justice (2022, Massachusetts Review)

Disability Pride Month July “looks to celebrate disability as an identity by sharing the experiences of the disabled community” (2022, Forbes)

The Valuable 500 reflects on What Disability Pride means to us. (2022)

How a Cyborg Challenges Reality “It seems obvious that cyborgs are first and foremost disabled people, and yet I’m stuck inside this other reality, defined by nondisabled people, where I make an appeal for personhood.” (2022, NYT)

From the Debrief's own Áine Kelly-Costello: Social Role Valorisation: What is it, and what’s the problem? “When people hold roles that are valued by others, they will become more valued as individuals”. Unfortunately this can have the side-effect of ”perpetuating the devalued status of disability and disabled people” by focussing on individual conformity. (2022, A Frame on Life)

Satirical take on Five Ways to Accommodate Sighties in the Workplace “Turn on the lights. You know this.” (2022, Squeaky Wheel)

A powerful tribute to her body from Frances Ryan: Living in a woman’s body: this body is a genetic mistake – but it is sex, laughter and beauty too.

"This body is a genetic mistake, a pitiable stare, the scan on a mundane Tuesday lunchtime with a doctor speaking in hushed tones by the bed.

It is glorious too, thanks. It is deep-in-the-bones laughter at 2am with people who love you; only strangers care that it is sitting in a wheelchair while doing so (“Have you got a licence for that thing, sweetheart?”). It is straight-As, promotions and beating expectations as much as the odds. It is being buckled over from the pain, clutching a public toilet bowl, pills and dignity rattling at the bottom of a handbag. It is sex, fevered goosebumps and kisses to the skin like magic. It is warm summers with friends, sunshine on bare legs and 90s dance music ricocheting through the air. It is fucking knackered." (2022, the Guardian)

Jane Waithera′s fight against the stigma of albinism (short video, no subtitles, 2022, DW)

Define Yourself: Riva Lehrer’s and Jan Grue’s Disability Memoirs (2022, LA Review of Books)

Living Inclusion a campaign featuring the voices and lives of persons with disabilities in the global south. (2022, GIZ)

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Strengthening the voice of Organizations of Persons with Psychosocial Disabilities learning from experiences in Africa and Asia. (Feb, CBM Global)

Mapping awareness-raising and capacity-building materials on developmental disabilities for non-specialists: a review of the academic and grey literature. (Feb, International Journal of Mental Health Systems)

Review of the 'The Routledge International Handbook of Mad Studies' A “valuable introduction for people new to the field”, “with its international scope, its persistent efforts to decenter white, Global North voices and experiences, and its close attention to the historical, philosophical, and theoretical underpinnings of mad studies”. (Jan, H-Disability)

Workplace Wellness Programs Have Little Benefit, Study Finds

“The study, published this month in Industrial Relations Journal, considered the outcomes of 90 different interventions and found a single notable exception: Workers who were given the opportunity to do charity or volunteer work did seem to have improved well-being.” (Jan, NYT)

Information Note on Disability and Inclusion in MHPSS. Guidance for Mental Health and Psychosocial Support in Emergency Settings responses in emergency settings. (Jan, IASC)

Mental Health and Wellbeing at Work Policy Review (2023, International Organisation of Employers)

Mental Health and Wellbeing at Work Policy Review (2023, International Organisation of Employers)

WhatWENeed Campaign 2023 “one of our yearly advocacy instruments to continually challenge the globalizing of psychiatry and its institutions and their influence on shaping of international policies” (2023, TCI Global)

Mental health, human rights and legislation: guidance and practice:

“Mental health is growing as a public health priority and human rights imperative, and an increasing number of countries are wishing to adopt or reform legislation related to mental health. However, laws on mental health, currently often fail to address discrimination and human rights violations including in mental health care settings.” (2023, WHO)

Preventing suicide: a resource for media professionals. (2023, WHO)

What interventions work to address trauma among people with intellectual disabilities? Evidence brief. (2023, Disability Evidence Portal)

Not all mental health apps are helpful. Experts explain the risks, and how to choose one wisely (2023, The Conversation)

Mental Health & Psychosocial Support Good Practice Guide: “this guidance helps all actors engaged in emergency response to ensure that their MHPSS activities are inclusive” (2023, CBM Global)

‘It’s a huge sign of progress’: the battle to decriminalise suicide. “In at least 17 countries, suicide remains a criminal offence – a ‘huge barrier’ to mental health care. As Ghana becomes one of four countries to overturn its law in a year, others could follow” (2023, the Guardian)

Mental health and lived experience: In global mental health, “lived experience expertise ought to be equally compensated for based on equal pay for equal work.” (2023, Global Mental Health)

Decolonising global mental health: the role of Mad Studies (2023, Global Mental Health) See also discussion on the Debrief.

The Drawbacks and Downsides of Online Therapy

“In the past year, a flurry of reports have found that some of the most recognizable names in the industry have repeatedly engaged in creepy and harmful data-sharing practices that treat people in need of help as prospective sources of profit instead of as patients. Taken together, the reports reveal a dangerous cocktail of tech solutionism, abuse of consumer trust, and regulatory failure that puts highly vulnerable people at risk.” (2023, Business Insider)

Reprioritising global mental health: psychoses in sub-Saharan Africa. “Our findings point to the need not only for more research on psychoses in sub-Saharan Africa, but also for more representation and leadership in the conduct of research and in international priority-setting more broadly—especially by people with lived experience from diverse backgrounds.” (2023, International Journal of Mental Health Systems.)

Anxiety and Depression Signs Among Adolescents in 26 Low- and Middle-Income Countries: “Compared to adolescents without functional difficulties, those with difficulties in one or more domains were three times more likely to have signs of depression and anxiety.” (2023, Journal of Adolescent Health)

Controversy erupts over non-consensual AI mental health experiment. “Koko let 4,000 people get therapeutic help from GPT-3 without telling them first.” (2023, Ars Technica)

BasicNeeds Network Launch: bringing together 100+ years of mental health implementation experience. (2023, CBM UK)

The Virtual Asylum Replacing Mental Healthcare (2022, Tech Policy Press)

Mental Health Apps Are Not Keeping Your Data Safe “With little regulation and sometimes outright deception, the possibility of discrimination and other “data harms” is high” (2022, Scientific American)

The future of mental health care might lie beyond psychiatry: “Poor countries are developing a new paradigm of mental health care.” (2022, Vox)

Launch of the report of the Lancet Commission On Ending Stigma and Discrimination in Mental Health. (2022, United for Global Mental Health)

Guidelines on mental health at work: “evidence-based recommendations to promote mental health, prevent mental health conditions, and enable people living with mental health conditions to participate and thrive in work.” (2022, WHO)

The story of depression and how we treat it a review of A Cure for Darkness, a new book which “takes a more global and socioeconomically inclusive approach to studying depression”. (2022, Africa is a Country)

World Mental Health Report “Stigma, discrimination and human rights violations against people with mental health conditions are widespread in communities and care systems everywhere. And in all countries, it is the poorest and most disadvantaged in society who are at greater risk of mental ill-health and who are also the least likely to receive adequate services.” (2022, WHO)

Hope, empowerment, action: a new series dedicated to suicide prevention:

“To begin with, we need to abandon the myth that every suicide is the outcome of 'mental illness'. And we must reckon with the deep socioeconomic factors that make suicide one of the biggest public health challenges of our time.” (2022, Sanity by Tanmoy)

Mental Health Apps Like BetterHelp Are a Privacy Nightmare, Mozilla Says. (2022, Gizmodo)

COVID-19 pandemic triggers 25% increase in prevalence of anxiety and depression worldwide (2022, WHO)

A briefing on Financing Mental Health For All as part of universal healthcare: “the opportunity for once-in-a-generation change”. (2022, United for Global Mental Health)

Entry points for mental health and wellbeing a brief on how international cooperation can incorporate mental health. (2022, Bond)

Mental health support for children and adolescents with hearing loss scoping review (2022, BJPsych)

Digital Futures in Mind Reflecting on Technological Experiments in Mental Health & Crisis Support:

The “paradigm of advocating for and developing algorithmic mental health tools has in turn exacerbated harms done to those in crisis, by not recognising either the particularities of their circumstances, or the systemic stigma these systems can reinforce. In this report, the authors present an alternative framework in which every step of the design, training, implementation and regulation of algorithmic healthcare systems would be done with the direct involvement of people who know the worst things that these systems can do, because they’ve lived it.” (link to pdf, 2022)

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Overview

Google Maps Adds Transit Alerts For Broken Elevators, Accessibility Issues (Jul, CNET)

Travel Patterns of Americans with Disabilities “In 2022, 18.6 million Americans age 5 and older (6.1 percent of all persons in that age range) self-reported travel-limiting disabilities.” (Apr, Bureau of Transportation Statistics)

Solo Travel without Sight: the Ultimate Guide to Traveling Blind (Feb, Connor Scott-Gardner)

Beyond Barriers: trailblazers of inclusive travel. 14 people making the world more accessible for 2024. (Jan, Condé Nast Traveller)

10 Most Accessible Cities features some big capitals including some cities I did not think of as very accessible. (link to pdf, 2022, Valuable 500)

Global Trends Report on Making Travel Inclusive for All (link to pdf, 2022, Valuable 500)

Fostering an inclusive urban transport system. Survey on inclusion from 20 public-transport operators around the world. They found that there were initiatives for inclusion but they were usually not integrated. (2022, McKinsey)

Experts at Dubai summit seek better travel facilities and accessibility for 'people of determination' worldwide (2022, Gulf News)

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Air Travel

Are we entering a golden age of accessibility? An optimistic view on changes in the sector from an airline professional. (2023, Airlines)

United is adding Braille signage to its planes “So far, about a dozen planes have been equipped with the signage, which conveys information about rows, seat numbers and lavatories. The rest of the United-operated fleet, which doesn’t include regional jets, are expected to be updated by the end of 2026.” (2023, Washington Post)

Delta Developing First-of-Its-Kind Airplane Seat for Wheelchair Users to stay in their chairs. (2023)

First Look: Air4All Wheelchair Securement Space by Delta Flight Products. Preview of a model where wheelchairs ride in body of the plane. (2023, Wheelchair Travel)

Why Accessibility is Essential for Air Travel efforts to “move the priority of accessible air travel” and their inclusion in the latest Airport Handling Manual. (2023, IATA)

‘It’s not the waiting, it’s the indignity’: disabled passengers tell of air travel torment. (2022, the Guardian)

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Overview

The Charter of Solfagnano G7 commitment on disability inclusion:

“We strongly reaffirm our commitment to show leadership and ambition, in line with the UNCRPD, and to collaborate, towards its full implementation with all international institutional partners representing persons with disabilities, associations, third- sector organisations, local communities and the private sector that intends to support the recognition of the right of all to full and effective participation in the civil, social, political, economic and cultural life of our countries.” (Oct, G7 Italia 2024)

Time to Recognize Persons with Disabilities and the Slave Trade (Aug, Just Security)

First week of 31st CRPD Committee Session Updates from Burkina Faso, Benin, and The Netherlands. (Aug, IDA)

Second-week update of 31st CRPD Committee Session. With reviews of Ghana, Belarus, Belgium, Denmark, Mauritius and Ukraine. (Aug, IDA)

17th Session Of The Conference Of States Parties To The CRPD (COSP17). Agenda and videos of meetings. (Jun, UN)

Inclusive Accountability: The Current State of International Criminal Law and Disability:

“Even as this renaissance [of international criminal law] is establishing more robust methods for ensuring greater accountability for international crimes, absent from these negotiations, discussions, and documents is consideration of persons with disabilities and their lived experiences.” (Jun, HPOD)

Lessons and Conclusions from 34 Countries from situational analyses on the rights of persons with disabilities:

“All of the situation analyses confirm that critical gaps exist in the capacities of the stakeholders responsible for implementing and monitoring commitments towards disability inclusion. Policy-level commitments at the national level are easy to make. They do not require specific capacities and they generate positive feedback from the international community for leaders. However, if these commitments do not lead to implementation and enforcement mechanisms with sufficient resource and capacities (at the local level as well), they will remain empty promises.” (Apr, UNPRPD)

CRPD Committee’s Concluding Observations Compilation updated April 2024. (Apr, IDA)

Strengthening the Inclusion, Protection and Wellbeing of Human Rights Defenders with Disabilities, a guide. (Mar, Protection International)

30th Session of the CRPD Committee (Mar, OHCHR)

The Human Rights System Is Under Threat World Report 2024. Country reports include sections on disability rights. (Jan, Human Rights Watch)

Report of the Special Rapporteur on the rights of persons with disabilities taking stock on a decade of the mandate and sharing a vision of “connecting to push forward”.

The Routledge International Handbook of Disability Human Rights Hierarchies: “Despite important progress, the disability human rights project not only remains incomplete, but has often created new hierarchies among persons with disabilities themselves or across the human rights it promotes.” (2023, Routledge)

Legal Capacity, Disability and Human Rights a book exploring these issues with chapters by legal scholars. Edited by Michael Bach, Nicolás Espejo-Yaksic. (2023)

CRPD Committee closed its 29th session: eight Concluding Observations coming soon. (2023, IDA)

Progress on disability rights risks going in reverse. Remarks from António Guterres. “We must do much, much better,” (2023, UN)

Will disabled people be accounted for in the UN process for a crimes against humanity treaty? (2023, Just Security)

Global Report on Deafblindness: Good Practices and Recommendations for the Inclusion of Persons with Deafblindness (2023, WFDB)

Compilation of CRPD Closing Observations by each article of the convention. (2023, IDA, Dropbox)

World Report 2023 makes many references to disability in each of the country profiles and provides a mixed but optimistic view on a “new international embrace of human rights”:

“The magnitude, scale, and frequency of human rights crises across the globe show the urgency of a new framing and new model for action. Viewing our greatest challenges and threats to the modern world through a human rights lens reveals not only the root causes of disruption but also offers guidance to address them.” (2023, Human Rights Watch)

Transformation of services for persons with disabilities. “New technologies and participation allow us to imagine support services of persons with disabilities beyond traditional models based on impairment and dependency. This report offers a framework to rethink these services with personhood, autonomy and human rights at their center.” (2023, Gerard Quinn) Also on OHCHR.

Youth lead anti-corruption talks on disability (2023, EDYN)

Disability Policy Worldwide database of policies around the world. (2023, World Policy Analysis Center)

A lively discussion on the most under-researched topic when it comes to inclusive policies? (2022, Center for Inclusive Policy)

Restoring the personhood of persons with disabilities short intervention on how “the Convention on the rights of persons with disabilities is allowing those who were assumed to be hidden permanently from the world to have their moral agency both respected and restored.” See also further remarks on disability and the struggle for personhood. (2022, Gerard Quinn, Special Rapporteur)

How Human Rights Defenders with disabilities are targeted & excluded globally. See the video testimonies. (2022, Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders)

The Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities had its twenty-seventh session reviewing reports from Bangladesh, China, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of China, Macau Special Administrative Region of China, Indonesia, Japan, Lao People's Democratic Republic, New Zealand, Republic of Korea and Singapore. See also documentation from the meetings. (2022, OHCHR)

Disability rights: How ‘nothing about us without us’ powered a global treaty. A vital, wide-ranging conversation exploring development of the Convention and onwards onto tensions today, with focus on legal capacity, mental health and psycho-social disabilities:

“The medical model that the disability community abandoned is still very prevalent for persons with psychosocial disabilities. It’s very hard to do advocacy that is not framed through mental health lens. [...] When people talk about your rights, (they) think we need to ensure access to mental health services and quality support, but nobody’s talking about my right to employment, my right to education. [...] The mental health system works as a gatekeeper. If I want to access a social benefit, I actually have to go to see a psychiatrist that will say that I have a disability and depending on the country, he may say, actually, this person doesn’t take medication; he may need to be assessed to see if he has the capacity to decide not to take medication. [...] You have a system ready to take away your rights.” (2022, Strength and Solidarity)

CIP Discussion on how development partners influence governments in taking ownership of disability inclusion? (2022, CIP)

CIP Question of the month is on the gap between policy and practice in disability rights in low and middle-income countries, and what can be done to close it. (2022, CIP)

Report on disability legislation and how it works for people with Facial Disfigurements “While the UNCRPD provides a strong theoretical foundation for protecting the rights of people with facial disfigurements through its wide definition of disability, in reality, it has had more limited practical success, owing to the limited accountability measures in place” (link to pdf, 2022, Face Equality)

We cannot keep leaving women with disabilities behind in leadership (2022, African Arguments)

Face Equality is a Human Right:

“Historically, legal recognition of disfigurement has been limited to disability laws and spaces. But is facial difference always classed as a disability? While it is true that there is often an overlap between the two characteristics, many members of the facial difference community indicate that facial difference is an identity in itself.” (link to pdf, 2022, Face Equality International)

Taxes, Budgets, and Human Rights: Part of a series on key concepts in human rights and the economy:

‘the use of public resources can help to tackle centuries of exclusion towards certain groups (like women, indigenous peoples, people with disabilities, LGBTIQ+ communities, and more) who have been systematically denied their rights. In fact, any group fighting for social justice is going to face, at some point, the question of “how to pay” to fix the problem.’ (2022, CESR)

Why tax justice is critical to the rights of persons with disabilities. Injustices that persons with disabilities face “cannot be properly tackled without dedicated public resources. ” (2022, CESR)

CRPD Committee Twenty-Sixth Session considered State reports of Hungary, Jamaica, Mexico,Switzerland and Venezuela. (2022, OHCHR)

The proposal for a United Nations Convention on Tax aims to ensure that tax systems support realization of goals relating to equality, including the rights of persons with disabilities, and that States report on this. (2022, Eurodad)

Unchaining Disability Law Global Considerations, Limitations and Possibilities in the Global South and East:

‘Over the past years, there have been increased legal measures to protect and promote the rights of persons with disabilities. Yet there has been significantly less action in relation to direct prosecution, despite mounting global pressure from disability rights advocates. The majority of persons with disabilities continue to live on the margins of, and often outside, the law, as the law offers them little or no protection because of deep stigmatization, inequality, and marginality. Institutions designed to protect persons with disabilities in countries positioned on the “global peripheries of law” are “places in the world where it is particularly difficult to realize human rights in practice.”’ (2022, AJIL Unbound)

A paper exploring how Fiscal policy needs a focus on disability: how to make this possible? (in Spanish, 2022, Principles for Human Rights in Fiscal Policy)

The 15th session of the Conference of States Parties to the CRPD is scheduled in New York from 14th to 16h June (2022, UN)

Human Rights Watch World Report 2022 starts with a discussion of autocrats "on the defensive" and how democracies can "rise to the ocassion"; from there it is an update on human rights by country, including updates on disability rights. (2022, Human Rights Watch)

5 types of discriminatory laws that punish you for having leprosy (2022, Leprosy Mission)

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Assisted Dying and Euthanasia

Better Off Dead? References on assisted dying around the world. (Open University)

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Disability Rights Cohort Sample Commitments commitments states can make to help promote disability inclusion. (Jan, IFES)

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Comprehensive sexuality education is currently failing persons with disabilities (Jun, Impel Consultancy)

Disability, Sexuality and Consent: How Activists Are Reshaping the Narrative. Beautifully illustrated exploration of relationships, care, legal frameworks and community. (2023, NYT)

Sexual and reproductive healthcare must be disability inclusive. “With women’s rights being rolled back across the world, it is more important than ever for sexual health and family planning services to be disability inclusive” (2023, BMJ)

Statement on the challenges faced by LGBT people with disabilities and recommendations for government action. (2023, OHCHR)

Improving contraceptive choices and bodily autonomy for women and girls with disabilities:

“For example, evidence shows that women with disabilities experience lower coverage of modern contraceptives (44%) compared to women without disabilities (48%). The gap is even larger in South Asia: 48% versus 59%. Similarly, adults with disabilities in sub-Saharan Africa are less likely to have comprehensive knowledge about HIV prevention and transmission (23%) compared to people without disabilities (33%).” (2023, Sightsavers)

LGBTQ+ Disabled Activists on Pride and Creating Their Own Representation. (2023, Tilting The Lens)

Disability & Sexual Violence: Women with disabilities’ global struggle for their right to intimacy (2023, HPOD)

The Right to Marry: Barriers to intimacy for persons with disabilities. (2023, HPOD)

Disability Inclusive Sexual and Reproductive Health & Rights A guide signposting key concepts and resources. (2023, DCDD)

Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights. An evidence digest. (2022, SDD Direct)

Some experiences of sex workers with disabilities who find opportunities in their work. (2022, URevolution)

An evidence digest on LGBTIQ+ and disability inclusion (2022, Social Development Direct)

Between Vulnerability and Sexual Agency recent history discussion in the US and UK contexts. (2022, History Workshop)

Be inclusive: sexual and reproductive health. (2022, Inclusive Futures)

Evidence brief on promoting the sexual health of men and women with physical disabilities in low- and middle- income countries. (2021, Disability Evidence Portal)

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Space4People with Disabilities “At the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA), we believe that space can contribute in many important ways to achieving disability inclusion and can have transformational effects for persons with disabilities.” (2023, UNOOSA)

Alt text proved unexpected star of NASA’s Webb images:

“The image is divided horizontally by an undulating line between a cloudscape forming a nebula along the bottom portion and a comparatively clear upper portion,” reads one. “Speckled across both portions is a starfield, showing innumerable stars of many sizes. The smallest of these are small, distant, and faint points of light. The largest of these appear larger, closer, brighter, and more fully resolved with 8-point diffraction spikes. The upper portion of the image is bluish, and has wispy translucent cloudlike streaks rising from the nebula below.” (2022, Washington Post)

How AstroAccess Plans to Extend Accessibility in Space. Good to see in this piece that NASA experiments in the area of disability and space exploration date back to the 1960s with a study on motion sickness as experienced by deaf men. (2022, Payload)

The Right Stuff a great episode exploring the ways we imagine space, space travel, and what that means for life back on Earth. (With transcript, 2022, Radiolab)

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What Paralympic Goalball is and how it’s played: ‘the coolest sport you’ve never heard of’. (Sep, Washington Post)

For Paralympic Athletes, Travel Remains a Major Challenge: One of the Biggest Barriers to Competing. (Sep, AFAR)

Paralympic Paradoxes Debrief feature on the tensions between Para sport and disability advocacy:

“Disability rights are about levelling the playing field without any exceptions. Sports are about fairness of competition that leads to winners and losers.” (Sep, Disability Debrief)

What a Blind Photographer Saw at the Paralympics

“My camera was able to show me all the things my eyes couldn’t, and I began to hunt for things to photograph — cool shadows, interesting angles, repeating colors.” (Sep, New York Times)

Why the Paralympics ‘inclusive’ messaging is misleading

“Parasport is exclusionary on two fronts. Firstly, the classification system — a cornerstone of para sport — is inherently exclusionary because not all athletes who experience disability are eligible. Because the system categorizes athletes based on specific impairments, some are inevitably left out. Secondly, even for those who are eligible to compete, the opportunity to participate can be limited by the sport-specific classification systems. In others words, some sports within the para sport system are themselves exclusionary.” (Sep, The Conversation)

How Blind Soccer Is Played at the 2024 Paris Paralympics (Sep, Wired)

Why do so many people not know about Deaflympics? “Tokyo 2025 Deaflympics will be the 100th anniversary commemorative Games and will be held for the first time in Japan.” (Aug, David Player)

Cheating at the Paralympics is a growing problem, some athletes say “Athletes say ‘classification doping,’ in which competitors lie about their levels of disability, is on the rise and that those in charge don’t want to police it.” (Aug, Washington Post)

Why aren’t the Olympics and Paralympics combined into one Games? Logistics, getting their own spotlight and a “lasting legacy of social change”. (Aug, The Conversation)

How the classification system works This glossary will explain the method behind the different classifications, which dictate which athletes are eligible to compete in a sport and how athletes are grouped. (Aug, The Athletic)

Zakia Khudadadi takes bronze and an historic first medal for Refugee Paralympic Team. “A thrilling series of Para taekwondo bouts leads to a bronze medal in the K44-47kg category”. (Aug, UNHCR)

Why sport must be (re)imagined in ways that make it more accessible for all disabled athletes:

‘The increased media coverage of the Paralympic Games makes Paralympic sport seem “inclusive.” But, the continued reliance on segregated sport and narrowly defined classification categories suggests ableism remains. For example, some intellectually and cognitively disabled athletes are excluded. This implies that elite competition and inclusive sport may be incompatible.’ (Aug, The Conversation)

Born without arms, Matt Stutzman has changed archery: “The four-time Paralympian won gold and set a new Paralympic record. He’s also inspired other armless athletes to take up the sport.” (Aug, Washington Post)

20+ LGBTQ+ Athletes to Watch at the 2024 Paralympics Games: “From rowers and wheelchair tennis players to judokas, swimmers, and triathletes, these are some of the LGBTQ+ paralympians competing in this year's Games.” (Aug, Them)

Paris 2024: Introduction to wheelchair basketball “Wheelchair basketball was one of the eight sports staged at the inaugural Paralympic Games in Rome, Italy, in 1960.” (Jul, International Paralympic Committee)

People with disability know bodies can be funny – so it’s OK that you’re laughing at the Paralympics TikTok account. “It is a relief to see a promotion of the Paralympics that avoids the usual stereotypes.” (Jul, The Conversation)

Not everyone is laughing at the controversial Paralympic TikTok account (Jul, RNZ)

Paralympics 2024: Para-athletes to be vetted for Ukraine war support “Para-athletes from Russia and Belarus will be allowed to compete at the Paris Paralympics from 28 August as neutrals.” (Mar, BBC)

Para Legacy a video on the history of the Paralympic games. (2023, Peter Langton)

On the Debrief: Games of inclusion or exclusion? reflecting on the gap between disability rights and the Paralympic Games. (2023, Disability Debrief)

Double amputee Everest climber “An Army veteran who lost both his legs in Afghanistan has reached the top of Mount Everest in an attempt to make mountaineering history.” (2023, AP)

Debrief view: How would you like to be called that? reflection on the Paralympics Committee social media. (2023, Disability Debrief)

Paralympics in crisis as international and Australian athletes game the system. “Insiders described a culture where classification rules were regularly bent and broken, with few repercussions for those prepared to exploit a weak system.” (2023, ABC News)

What to look forward to in the Paralympic Movement in 2023 (2023, International Paralympic Committee)

The first Olympiad for People with Disabilities: A milestone for chess. (2023, ChessBase)

Dementia and Football: a taboo in the most popular sport in the world. (In Spanish, 2023, Yo También.)

What should the future of para sport look like at the Commonwealth Games? (2022, ABC News)

Special Olympics Unified with Refugees brings inclusion to the world's most marginalized (2022, Fansided)

Special Olympics Calls Off World Winter Games In Russia (2022, Disability Scoop)

Paralympic Classifications Are Meant To Level The Playing Field. Do They? Detailed breakdown of classification systems and results. (2022, Five Thirty Eight)

See highlights and results of the Paralympic Winter Games held in Beijing between 4th and 13th March. (2022, Paralympic)

As an Afghan Paralympian, sport gave me opportunities all disabled people deserve (2022, the Guardian)

Book review of More Than Medals A History of the Paralympics and Disability Sports in Postwar Japan. (2022, H-Disability)

Stop Calling Paralympic and Disabled Athletes “Inspiring”. (2022, Bitch Media)

A blog on Inclusion through sport and sports programmes that have promoted this. (2022, LFTW)

Opening ceremony of the Paralympics started with a speech calling for peace (2022, Youtube, Channel 4 Sport)

IPC makes decisions regarding RPC and NPC Belarus. Decision for athletes from Russia and Belarus to participate as neutrals. And "The Paralympic Honour bestowed to Vladimir Putin, President of Russia, has been withdrawn." (2022, IPC) Athletes of Ukraine criticised the IPC for not taking a strong enough stance, “choosing bloodshed and profits over principle and stakeholders”. See also video of their appeal, (28 Feb).

Channel 4 presenting team for Winter Paralympics will all be disabled people (2022, the Guardian)

The Para Equestrian Digest a new monthly digest "building inclusion, one story at a time" (2022, FEI)

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Measuring violence against women with disability a briefing note on data availability, methodological issues and recommendations for good practice. (Mar, WHO)

Violence against women 60 years and older A briefing note on data availability, methodological issues and recommendations for good practice. (Mar, WHO)

Safe and ethical data collection on disability inclusion in Gender Based Violence (GBV) programming. Disability Inclusion Helpdesk Report. (2023, Social Development Direct)

Gender-Based Violence and Disability Inclusion Fact Sheet. (2023, UNFPA)

The 1st of March is Disability Day of Mourning remembering people with disabilities who were victims of filicide (killed by their parents).

'When we say “filicide,” we are talking about a pattern of violence that starts when a parent or caregiver murders their child or adult relative with a disability and continues in how these murders are reported, discussed, justified, excused, and replicated.' (2022, Disability Memorial)

Report on Harmful practices and hate crimes targeting persons with albinism. in a statement on the report, the Special Rapporteur said:

“For many persons with albinism, this is what their day-to-day realities entail – experiences of ostracism, rejection and the debilitating fear of being abducted or attacked on their way to school, work or home.” (2022, OHCHR)

Global estimates of violence against children with disabilities: an updated systematic review and meta-analysis. “This review shows that children with disabilities experience a high burden of all forms of violence, despite advances in awareness and policy in the past 10 years.” (2022, Lancet Child & Adolescent Health) See also coverage on Disability Insider: “1 in 3 children with disabilities globally have experienced violence in their lifetimes”. And on NPR.

From the Shadows to the Centre important collection of testimonies from women with disabilities on harassment within the disability community. (link to pdf, 2022, Rising Flame)

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Overview

Easy-read magazine edition Europe for us Everything created was destroyed. (Link to pdf, 2023, Inclusion Europe)

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Evacuating or Leaving Ukraine

Ensuring the protection of persons with disabilities fleeing from Ukraine A note on priorities. (2022, UNHCR)

The Informal International Network Getting Disabled Ukrainians Out of the War Zone. Important especially in highlighting the active role persons with disabilities themselves play in humanitarian response. (2022, Time)

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Response and Resources

Rebuilding a society for all ages in Ukraine “Reforming long-term care and support, healthcare and pensions and building inclusive infrastructure, are critical priorities to address as Ukraine rebuilds and aligns itself with EU norms and standards.” (2023, HelpAge International)

Fighting for Disability Rights Amid Russian War. Profile of Tanya Herasymova. “We helped more than 14,000 people in the last year,” Tanya says, “and we’ve got one more thousand waiting for help.” (2023, Byline Times)

Immediate needs and an inclusive future: Persons with disabilities in Ukraine need more support. (2023, EDF)

The monitoring of the accessibility of pre-fab camps for people with disabilities (2023, League of the Strong)

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Addressing water, sanitation and hygiene inequalities: A review of evidence, gaps, and recommendations for disability-inclusive WASH by 2030. (Jun, Plos Water)

Adapting Menstrual Health Interventions for People with Intellectual Disabilities in Emergencies (2023, Frontiers of Sanitation)

Taking action to achieve inclusive WASH an introductory online course exploring disability-inclusive WASH. (2023, WaterAid, World Bank and UNICEF)

The inclusion of disability within efforts to address menstrual health during humanitarian emergencies: A systematized review. (2022, Frontiers)

Water for Women guide on Partnerships for Transformation for WASH and Rights Holder Organizations includes a section featuring partnerships with organizations of persons with disabilities. (Link to pdf, 2022, Water for Women) See also their other recent publications that have taken efforts to mainstream disability.

Progress on drinking water, sanitation and hygiene in schools: 2000-2021 Data update includes a section on disability which shows gaps in data and how changes are lagging: “schools were more likely to have adapted infrastructure and materials than disability-accessible toilets” (2022, UNICEF)

Terminology Guidelines for Equality, inclusion and rights (2022, Water Aid)

Reflections on barriers to inclusion of older people with incontinence and their caregivers in humanitarian settings (2022, Amita Bhakta)

A guide to making WASH workplaces inclusive considering gender equality, disability and social inclusion. (2021, Institute for Sustainable Futures)

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