All Commitments made by Sightsavers

Policy, legislation and its implementation
We will support the development and implementation of national legislation and policies that promote the rights of people with disabilities. We will support the empowerment of people with disabilities, and their representative organisations, to hold governments to account for commitments made on disability. We will support the participation and engagement of DPOs and CSOs in national and international monitoring and review processes – notably the CRPD, the SDGs and those emanating from the Global Disability Summit. 

Timeframe and/or implementation plan
There will be a particular push over the next few years with each of the countries where we work focusing around key national events and opportunities for advocacy. For example in Pakistan, we will use the political interest generated by upcoming election.

Capacity building: teachers and staff
We will provide development support to a range of different stakeholders to help them meet the various needs of children with disabilities (from early childhood onwards). We will make sure the support is contextually appropriate and that primary care givers are included in the process.

Timeframe and/or implementation plan
This will be achieved through close collaboration with various partners (including DPOs). We will work with local stakeholders and use various sources of evidence to identify appropriate approaches within the relevant community structures. Over the next two years we will pilot the various approaches and then collect evidence to enable us to assess the effectiveness of different approaches and then disseminate this learning widely through a diverse set of learning materials.

Policy, standards and regulations
Through the provision of technical assistance to a range of stakeholders, and by influencing the development of inclusive education policies and standards, we will contribute to the provision of quality education that meet the needs of children with disabilities (from early childhood onwards).

Timeframe and/or implementation plan
We will work with local stakeholders (including DPOs) to identify and pilot approaches to inclusive education which work within existing community structures and are based on evidence. We will collect and share evidence to support assessment of the effectiveness of approaches. We will scale up our work in this area over the next three years.

Access to decent work
With partners, we will establish and demonstrate effective models of working with the private sector to promote the employment of people with disabilities in the formal sector, and provide training to increase the financial inclusion of people with disabilities in the informal sector.

Timeframe and/or implementation plan
We will achieve this through a 5-year programme of work on scaling up effective models of working on disability inclusive employment. 

Reasonable accomodation in the workplace and training institutions
We will strengthen the diversity of Sightsavers as an organisation – aiming to at least double the number of staff with disabilities in the next five years and look to become an ‘employer of choice’ for people with disabilities. We will also ensure over 90% of our staff and trustees worldwide have been trained in disability awareness.

Timeframe and/or implementation plan
We will ensure our recruitment processes are clear and fully accessible and develop a mechanism for increasing the number of applications from people with disabilities. We will establish a global network for staff with disabilities, providing a forum for mutual support and feedback to the organisation, in the next 12 months.

New programmes or services
We will foster new partnerships with innovators in various forms of technology, including ‘appropriate or frugal’ technology, to provide tailored benefits to children and adults with disabilities.In a number of countries we will also work with governments to develop accessible communication portals and helplines to provide information for people with disabilities

Timeframe and/or implementation plan
Our programmes will identify problems during the design stage and we will be exploring creative solutions with a range of project participants and stakeholders.

Commit resources to support strengthened disability data
We will disaggregate data by disability in a systematic way and ensure that data is analysed and used to inform programme implementation and policy. We will collaborate with the Washington Group to test new modules and explore how the WGSS can be used in a complementary way with other tools, and work to test the Model Disability Survey. We will share learning and guidance with NSOs and other CSOs to build knowledge.

Timeframe and/or implementation plan
Over the next two years we will incorporate WGSS in geo-referenced population based surveys – including gender, age, economic status and disability. We will encourage governments to use these questions in National Census questionnaires. We will ensure that all our findings are widely disseminated and use relevant events to demonstrate the importance of this data and advocate for its use, including the World Data Forum in October.

We will ensure that gender equality is a core organisational objective. We will advocate for women and girls with disabilities to be included in various services, particularly those combatting sexual violence. More women than men are blind through preventable causes: we will therefore set a goal that women should make up at least 60% of all trachoma and cataract surgeries in our health programmes within three years.

Timeframe and/or implementation plan
Over the next two years, we will leverage the learning from our inclusive eye health toolkit to enable it to be applied to other health sectors. We will train staff on gender mainstreaming and systematically analyse gender disaggregated data.

Sign up to the Inclusive Data Charter
We are committed to the Inclusive Data Charter and will implement an action plan.We will increase the capacity of staff and partners to incorporate data disaggregation in their work, systematically include disaggregated data in our project systems and monitoring, and work collaboratively to share learning.

Timeframe and/or implementation plan
Our action plan will be published before the summit and will be on the GPSDD website. The action plan will be reviewed and updated regularly. We will use relevant events to showcase the Charter and our action plan, and encourage others to sign up to the Charter.

Promotion of inclusive development
We will promote and support the formulation of development policy and practice that is inclusive of people with disabilities. We will garner public support via our global Put Us in the Picture campaign to encourage more actors to include and prioritise disability inclusion systematically in their global and national level policies.

Timeframe and implementation plan
We expect to gear up our Put us in the Picture campaign globally immediately, short term activities will include commencement of the campaign in Ireland before the end of 2018.