Activities

- Mapping
Stage 1 of the project commenced with all partners carrying out a mapping exercise in their respective countries to identify disability in development policies and practices across the 25 member states and the EU institutions. This was to help determine the status of disability in development cooperation policies and legislation and subsequently lead to the development of training courses, materials and tools. The themes for the tools and training were to be tailored to the needs and interests of policy makers and development practitioners across the target countries and institutions concerned.

- National and regional trainings
On conclusion of the mapping exercises, national and regional trainings were planned for the duration of the two-year project. These trainings were to be directed at staff members of development cooperation departments in Ministries, governmental and non-governmental agencies, non-governmental organizations, disabled people organizations, and other non-state actors.

Furthermore, training tools were to be developed which could be used beyond this project for future training with other stakeholders and/or other countries.

NATIONAL AND REGIONAL TRAINING SESSIONS - 2006

NATIONAL AND REGIONAL TRAINING SESSIONS – 2007

- Regional conferences
In addition to other ongoing project activities, two European conferences on disability and development have also been held for representatives of Government, civil society and the research sector of all 25 EU member states and the European Institutions. The first conference was organized in Brussels on 21-22 November 2006 while the second took place on 14-15 May 2007 in Bratislava.

- Website
In May 2006, the project website was set up which holds a database of resources including best practices in disability mainstreaming in development cooperation. The website is a useful source of relevant reference documents on this subject and also works as a gateway to other relevant websites and resource centres. As the project has developed, the website has been enriched by material produced within this project including the results of the mapping exercises, training tools, workshop reports and good practice reports.

- Activities of the project

Mainstreaming disability into specific sector policies of development co-operation (2007/2008)

For selected sectors, policies on mainstreaming disability will be developed. The basis for this is the sector policies of the European Commission and/or the participating project countries. The selection of the sectors which has been analysed, will be done in consultation with the respective government departments and agencies of the participating project countries as well as by looking into priority policy areas of bilateral and multilateral aid or at policies that are on the way to be developed and/or revised.

Development of a Guide for integrating the disability dimension, with a gender sensitive approach, into Project Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation tools (2008)

Based on the Project Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation tools used by the governmental development co-operation departments and agencies in the project countries, proposals for the inclusion of the rights and specific needs of people with disabilities will be developed and disseminated to the stakeholders in development co-operation. They will furthermore include specific guidelines on gender issues.

Development of a Disability Inclusive Project Cycle Management Tool (2007/2008)

On European Commission level, this project analyses the Project Cycle Management, and develop an Inclusive Project Cycle Management tool as a best practice example. The purpose of the manual is to reply to the demand for concrete tools for including disability in programme design. The objective is to increase the proportion of programmes that are inclusive of disability in a sustainable way, by generating skills and knowledge in inclusive development among European Commission staff.

Based on the feedback from the European Commission staff the inclusive PCM manual will be published in a hard copy as well as displayed on the project website. The PCM Manual on-line version should be set up in a more interactive, user-friendly way accessible for everyone; a way which assures easy access for persons with disabilities and for users living in developing countries. The on-line version will also allow adjustments during a longer period of time (e.g. including tools, case studies, sector policies etc.).

After the manual will be developed and displayed on the project website, the field testing will take place in order to ensure that, in light of new developments at international level, the tool is properly up-to-date and usable.

Documentation of the national and regional training workshops and development of tools for trainings on national and regional level

All the information gathered during the development of the training curricula, and during the training workshops is now being processed and will be shared with all project partners. After the quality check of the training manuals, the tools will be finalized by the project partners and displayed on the project website.