RESOURCE: Disability Rights and Policies

Handicap International has released a new CD on “Disability Rights and Policies.” Each of the 8 major sections of this CD offers an extensive range of reference documents and resources, in both English and French, related to the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) and to international development. The CD is targeted at organizations at all levels from local to international, and across many sectors including development, emergency relief, and human rights. It is meant to be used as a reference tool for any organization that supports inclusive development, including disabled people’s organizations (DPOs), public authorities, and service providers.

Many of the publications and web sites offered in this free, on-line CD, with some exceptions, are unfamiliar to me. In other words, many haven’t yet been featured at We Can Do. Some seem to be valuable enough to deserve individual blog posts to themselves in the future, though I know I’ll never get to them all. Instead, I encourage We Can Do readers to browse the “Disability Rights and Policies” CD for themselves.

The content of the CD is grouped into 8 different thematic areas:

• Comprehension, awareness, and dissemination of disability issues: Resources that readers can use to help themselves better understand disability issues through a social and human rights paradigm–and to train others in disability awareness.
• Human Rights and Disability: Human rights training tools; information on the process for ratifying, implementing, and monitoring the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities
• The Human Rights Approach to Relief and Development: resources on how and why the international development field should incorporate a human rights approach into their programs
• Disability Policies: Strategies for Mainstreaming: Resources that international development organizations and agencies can use to mainstream disability issues into their policies and programs
• International Cooperation Policies on Disability in Emergency and Development: More on international development and disability inclusion, but with a focus on natural disasters, conflicts, and other emergency situations.
• Strengthening the Influence of Civil Society on the Disability Issue: Resources on how civil society organizations (for example, Disabled Peoples’ Organizations [DPOs]) can influence policy and advocate for their rights.
• Data and Studies on the Disability Issue: An extensive collection of resources and links with data and research studies related to people with disabilities around the world. Serious researchers will not want to overlook their link to the Washington City Group on Disability Measurement–a group that is working to improve the quality of research methodology into disability.
• Principal international actors and networks of civil society: find many of the major international organizations run by, or focused on, disability. (If these organizations aren’t enough for you, then also explore some of the links from the “blog roll” at the very bottom of each page at We Can Do, or check a list of relevant We Can Do posts for leads on finding more.

The CD can be downloaded from the following website:
http://handicap-international.fr/bibliographie-handicap/

It is available in both English and French.

The CD also can be requested from Handicap International (info@handicap-international.us).



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