Coordinating Task Force of the Global Partnership for Disability & Development Meets in Ethiopia

The Global Partnership for Disability and Development (GPDD) was formed in 2004 in recognition of the extreme poverty and exclusion experienced by the vast majority of the estimated 400 million disabled children, youth and adults living in developing countries. Consisting of a wide range of stakeholders including representatives of development banks and cooperation agencies, disabled people’s organizations, development NGOs and UN specialized agencies, the GPDD has established a small task force to coordinate its work.

The GPDD is working to bring disability from the margins into the mainstream of development work, in recognition that current social and economic programs aimed at poverty reduction do not reach the estimated 10% of the population with disabilities.

To take advantage of the great number of disability and development specialists attending the African Decade meetings and ILO African technical consultations in Addis, the GPDD Coordinating Task Force decided to hold its planning meeting for the next two years of activities in Addis, September 18-20.

The meeting, chaired by Kalle Konkkolla of Finland, concentrated on  membership criteria in the GPDD, outlining modalities for effective participation by NGO consortia and groups based in developing countries, and agreeing on a two-year work plan, especially through working groups on specific areas such as education and poverty reduction tools. In-depth information exchange sessions were also held with the Ethiopian disability movement and the African Disability Decade participants.

As meetings of the Task Force have been held through monthly phone calls, this was the first chance for members to meet face to face, and all agreed this had enabled much more intensive discussion and exploration of varying approaches to its work. Additionally, the two new members, deaf advocacy specialist Euphrasia Mbewe of Zambia, and the Hon. James Mwandha, Member of Parliament of Uganda, had the opportunity to provide insights from their experiences working with disabled Africans throughout the continent.

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