Gender, Disability & Development Report Issued
In early January 2002 Mobility International USA (MIUSA) announced publication of Gender and Disability: A Survey of InterAction Member Agencies. The survey was the first attempt to systematically document the extent to which US-based international development organizations include people with disabilities, particularly women and girls, in policies, employment, programs and services. One hundred and four members of InterAction, a coalition of international relief, development, environmental and refugee agencies based in the US, participated in the research project, which was sponsored by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Office of Women in Development.
Findings from the survey point to the need by development agencies for training, education and technical assistance to bring people with disabilities, in particular women with disabilities into the development assistance process. Most organizations collect little or no data about the participation of women and girls with disabilities in field programs. Existing data support anecdotal reports that very few women with disabilities are served in field programs, including gender-specific and disability-specific programs. Cited obstacles to their inclusion were lacks of training, information and resources for effective outreach and disability-related accommodations. Fewer than 1% of staff positions in responding agencies are filled by people with known disabilities. Respondent organizations indicated that they need assistance to implement equal employment opportunity policies for recruitment and job accommodation of people with disabilities in the US and overseas.
Recommendations from Gender and Disability include the need for InterAction member organizations to seek out appropriate technical assistance to develop Plans of Action to implement InterAction's Private Voluntary Organization (PVO) Standards on Disability. Adopted in 2000, the Standards provide guidelines for inclusion of people with disabilities in governance, management, human resources, programs, material assistance, and child sponsorship.
MIUSA, founded in 1981, is a US-based nonprofit organization working to ensure the inclusion of people with disabilities in international exchange and development programs. Nearly 1000 people from 80 different countries have taken part in MIUSA's unique cross-cultural disability rights and empowerment programs over the last 20 years. A member of InterAction, MIUSA recently began a new three year project sponsored by the US Agency on International Development, to provide training and technical assistance to InterAction member agencies, based on the findings of the gender and disability survey.
Gender and Disability: A Survey of InterAction Member Agencies - Findings and Recommendations on Inclusion of Women and Men with Disabilities in International Development Programs is available to download at no cost from the MIUSA website: www.miusa.org.
For more information, call MIUSA at (541) 343-1284 (V/TTY), e-mail at development@miusa.org, or visit our website, www.miusa.org.
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