Development and Disability: the need for Disability Inclusive Programme Monitoring and how to achieve it

If you are working in the Development and Humanitarian Aid sectors, you may have faced the need for more inclusivity in these fields, especially when conducting programmes. With more and more international organisations stressing the need for inclusive programmes and animated by the desire to achieve true equity, it has become necessary to rethink how development projects are monitored and conducted. Indeed, how programmes are drafted, planned and put into place greatly influences their ability to be disability inclusive. Inclusivity should be planned in project monitoring as soon as the project is thought of, and using data is necessary to track if your programme is inclusive enough. Indeed, too many times, inclusivity is not included early enough when the programme is being designed, which impacts the efficiency of this project to reach people with disabilities. To avoid that, DCDD created a Quick Guide aiming to help you understand the stakes of a disability-inclusive programme and how to use data recollection to strengthen the inclusivity of your projects. This guide is specifically developed for those who are involved in monitoring and evaluation of humanitarian aid and development programmes and policies. However, proposal developers, programme managers, field coordinators and anyone else who is involved in the development and implementation of such programmes may find this guide helpful.

In our Quick Guide, you will find tools to analyse what makes a programme disability-inclusive, answers to frequently asked questions, and legal and policy frameworks that can be relevant alongside key resources. In this article, we’re going to focus on the importance of data to better include people with disabilities and what the steps towards disability-inclusive programme monitoring are.

The importance of data to make your programme monitoring disability inclusive

To reinforce the inclusivity of your programmes, you need to identify and address the barriers that prevent persons with disabilities from being involved in your projects. When developing your theory of change, you need to have a data collection strategy that explicitly mentions disability in order to clearly track what is inclusive in your programme and what is not. Even if you did not comprise disability-inclusive data collection at the start of your programme, you could still add it later, thanks to localised disability data collecting. Having data recollection and analysis about persons with disabilities will enable you to fix target indicators in your future projects and analyse what did not work in past programmes. Having this feedback will ensure that the needs and perspectives of people with disabilities are taken into account, which will also improve the quality of your programmes.

There are three main ways to determine target indicators for the inclusion of people with disabilities in your programme:

?? ? ? ? ? Baseline data – Including questions regarding disability in your baseline surveys is the best possible way to develop quantitative and qualitative indicators regarding disability inclusion.?

?? ? ? ? ? Prevalence studies – Government authorities or Organisations of Persons with Disabilities (OPDs) may have prevalence studies available for your target area. Nonetheless, disability is very often underreported, because of inappropriate definitions of disability and data collection methods that are used. So always look critically at the method and definition used, and use data from different sources.?

?? ? ? ? ? Rough estimates – When prevalence studies are not available, the global average of 15% of the world population having a disability can provide a rough reference point. Beware, however, that averages can vary considerably. Factors influencing this can be the age of your target population, or general access to healthcare, for example. The most important things to keep in mind during this process are to use appropriate methods for data collection and to involve persons with disabilities (at all stages).

Steps on how to reach disability-inclusive programme monitoring

In our Quick Guide, we discuss each of these steps in detail, with resources and practical tips to help you better understand its goal. But to quickly summarise, here are the seven steps to follow to reach disability-inclusive programme monitoring:

During the policy setting:

1.? ? Work from a rights-based approach and collaborate with organisations of persons with disabilities

“Nothing about us without us” is a basic principle of the UNCRPD. How you look at disability will also influence how you collect and interpret data, which stresses the need to always work alongside persons with disabilities.

When formulating the project:

2.? ? Make the data collection process inclusive

You will only be able to get insight into the needs, views and opinions of persons with disabilities if the whole collection process is accessible for persons with disabilities.

3.? ? Formulate (sector-specific) disability-inclusive indicators

By making all the indicators in your programme disability inclusive through data disaggregation, you can measure whether persons with disabilities are able to participate and benefit from your programme on an equal basis with others.

4.? ? Prepare for data disaggregation

You need to identify who has a disability and who does not have a disability to adapt your programme. Simply asking, “Do you have a disability?” is not appropriate or effective. To identify persons with disabilities within your programmes and project areas, you can use the so-called Washington Group Questions, even though they have some limitations.

5.? ? Collect baseline data on disability and inclusion

Data disaggregation alone is not enough to get a full picture of inclusion. You will also need to collect data on participation, environmental and attitudinal barriers and quality of living.

While implementing the project:

6.? ? Monitor inclusion and equal participation of persons with disabilities and adjust implementation where needed

Often during a project, new barriers come to light, or the inclusion strategies are not yet completely implemented or do not have the anticipated effect. Consequently, it is necessary to monitor the inclusion of persons with disabilities during the implementation of the programme.

When evaluating the project:

7.? ? Evaluate disability inclusion and use the lessons learned for future programming, policy development and improvement of the monitoring mechanisms

Since the inclusion of persons with disabilities is still a new topic for many development actors, it is important to carefully evaluate the inclusion of persons with disabilities in programmes and document the lessons learned. These lessons learned will help to improve future programmes and inform organisational policies.

What tools can I use to track if my programme monitoring is inclusive and convince donors to make aid inclusive?

• Disability-inclusive ODA

Want to know how much donors spend on disability-inclusive development? This report gives you good insights.

• The OECD DAC Disability Marker

Want to know how to score programmes on the DAC Disability Marker? Check this handbook for data reporters.

• A guide from the Center for Inclusive Policy to find and analyse the available data

Want to use data from the DAC Disability Marker in your advocacy towards donors? This guide explains how to find and analyse the available data.??

?Overview of the benefits of Disability Inclusive Programme Monitoring:

• Guaranteeing basic human rights to people with disabilities and making them access the benefits of your programmes.
• Making your programmes more effective and sustainable while improving their outcomes by using data.
• Increasing the impact of your development interventions.
• Tracking what areas you should be working on to better include people with disabilities and improve the efficiency of your programmes.
• Achieving more easily Sustainable Development Goals and other international norms such as Article 24 of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
• Making sure your programmes leave no one behind.