By Haruna Gimba
The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has announced the release of the new 2024 ‘Nothing Without Us: USAID Disability Policy.’
There are more than 1.3 billion persons with disabilities around the world, 80 percent of whom live in low- and middle-income countries.
Any issue that affects human – climate change, hunger and disease often disproportionately affect persons with disabilities.
Intentional, sustainable, and meaningful inclusion of persons with disabilities in all areas of USAID’s work is therefore no longer an option – it is essential to realize our potential and meet our development goals.
The 2024 Policy is a comprehensive update to the 1997 USAID Disability Policy in response to stakeholder feedback and changes in the 21st century.
At its core, the Policy reinforces USAID’s commitment to championing disability-inclusive development and the rights of persons with disabilities.
The Policy, upheld by seven key operating principles, seeks to empower and elevate the lives of persons with disabilities by ensuring that USAID and our partners recognize, respect, value, meaningfully engage, include, and are intentional in supporting persons with disabilities and their representative organizations.
“Updates our framework of understanding disability to a social and rights-based framework in which the goal is to remove societal barriers to participation of persons with disabilities in their communities.
“Promotes the inclusion of persons with disabilities both in wider USAID programming and in activities focused specifically on persons with disabilities;
“Underscores the importance of working with persons with disabilities and local disability-led groups across all phases of the program cycle;
“Highlights promising approaches to disability inclusion in the full range of USAID programming areas.”
The 2024 “Nothing Without Us: USAID Disability Policy” responds to stakeholder feedback, updates promising practices, places the agency’s work within the current global context, and situates USAID to fulfil its long-standing commitment to non-discrimination and inclusion of persons with disabilities in society on an equitable basis with others.
The policy also positions USAID to partner with persons with disabilities in meeting the myriad challenges and opportunities of the 21st century.
