IN THIS EDITION:
1. Treaty bodies review, Geneva
2. Activities in the past weeks
3. Upcoming activities
4. IDA members
5. UN System, Agencies and Mechanism
6. Others
7. Job offers
- The 40th session of the Human Rights Council is being held from 25 February to 22 March, 2019. Among other items on the agenda (see the agenda here), the Council will consider and adopt the final outcomes of the Universal Periodic Review of Saudi Arabia, Senegal, China, Nigeria, Mexico, Mauritius, Jordan, Malaysia, the Central African Republic, Monaco, Belize, Chad, the Congo and Malta. More details here.
- The CEDAW Committee’s 72nd session is taking place from 18 February to 8 March, 2019 uring which a half day general discussion on trafficking women and girls in the context of global migration took place on 22 February, 2019. IDA and the European Disability Forum prepared written submission which were the basis for a public statement during this half DGD. More details on the DGD here.
- The 11th Pre-Sessional Working Group of the CRPD Committee will take place in Geneva from 8-11 April 2019. More details here.
2. ACTIVITIES IN THE PAST WEEKS
- Webinar on key messages to be delivered at HLPF on behalf of the Stakeholder Group of Persons with Disabilities (SGPwD) was held on 3 March, 2019. The webinar had prominent experts introducing the submission of the SGPwD chapter by chapter.
- Webinar on ‘Practical guidance on gathering and analysing data’ was organised on 27 February, 2019. Mitchell Loeb of the Washington Group on Disability Statistics; Daniel Mont of the Center for Inclusive Policy; and Mosharaff Hossain of ADD International spoke at the webinar. A recording of the webinar can be found here.
- Klaus Lachwitz of Inclusion International represented IDA at the Zero Project Conference in Vienna from 20-22 February 2019. More details on the conference here.
MARCH
- The UN Statistical Commission will hold its 50th Session from 5-8 March, 2019. On 6 March, 2019 the Stakeholder Group of Persons with Disabilities, the International Disability Alliance, CBM International, the Washington Group and Department of International Development (DFID) are co-sponsoring a side-event titled “Making disability visible in statistics”. The event will highlight current activities being undertaken by NSOs, UN agencies, development ministries, organizations of persons with disabilities and civil society to improve the collection and use of disability data to meet the requirements of CRPD and the SDGs. More information here.
- The 2nd Technical Workshop of the Education Flagship will be held in Nepal from March 11-14, 2019.
- WFDB will be organising a workshop on their recently released global report on the status of rights of persons with deafblindness in Nepal on 17-18 March, 2019.
- The Bridge ToT Module A in French and Portuguese will be organised in Geneva from 8-11 March, 2019, alongside the next session of the CRPD Committee.
- The 9th meeting of the IAEG-SDGs will take place from 25-28 March, 2019 in Beirut, Lebanon.
- The Regional Forum on Sustainable Development of the UN Economic Commission for Europe will be held on 21-22 March, 2019 in Geneva, Switzerland.
- The 6th Asia-Pacific People’s Forum on Sustainable Development will be held from 27-29 March, 2019 in Bangkok, Thailand.
- The 3rd webinar of the disability data series titled “Country experience on disability data collection” will be held on 27 March, 2019. Register here.
APRIL
- The IDA Programme Committee meeting will be organised from 1-4 April, 2019 in Madrid, Spain.
- The IDA Board meeting will be organized from 5-10 April, 2019 in Madrid, Spain.
- The Bridge Steering Committee will meet in Spain on 5 April, 2019.
- The Inter-Agency Standing Committee on Inclusion of Persons with Disabilities in Humanitarian Action will have a workshop in Spain from 5-11 April, 2019.
- The ESCWA Regional Forum on Sustainable Development will be held in Beirut, Lebanon from 16-18 April, 2019.
- The Financing for Development Forum 2019 will be held from 5-18 April, 2019 at the UN Headquarters in New York.
- The 5th session of the Africa Regional Forum on Sustainable Development will be held from 16-18 April, 2019 in Morocco.
- The 3rd meeting of the Forum of Countries of Latin American and the Caribbean on Sustainable Development will be held from 22-26 April, 2019 in Santiago, Chile.
- The IDA Women with Disabilities Flagship will conduct a capacity building workshop for UN Women in Cairo, Egypt 20-24 April, 2019 (tbc).
- A meeting of the GLAD Network will be held in Ottawa, Canada from 30 April to 2 May, 2019.
MAY
- The first Module of the Bridge CRPD-SDGs training cycle will be organized in Tanzania from 6-16 May, 2019.
- The 4th UN Multi-stakeholder Forum on Science, Technology and Innovation for the SDGs (STI Forum) will be held on 14-15 May, 2019 at the UN Headquarters in New York.
JUNE
- The 12th Conference of States Parties to the CRPD will be held at the UN headquarters in New York from 11-13 June, 2019. More details here.
- The Women Deliver Conference – the world’s largest conference on gender equality and health rights and well-being of girls and women will be held from 3-6 June, 2019 in Vancouver, Canada.
JULY
- What's coming up at the High Level Political Forum 2019? The 2019 High-level Political Forum will highlight the Sustainable Development Goals 4, 8, 10, 13, 16, 17 around the theme of 'Empowering people and ensuring inclusiveness and equality’. Fifty-one countries will conduct Voluntary National Reviews during the last three days of the session. Learn more about the HLPF here. To know about the participation and engagement of the Stakeholder Group of Persons with Disabilities here.
European Disability Forum
- The European Disability Forum (EDF) has launched a call for candidates of the European elections to join the pledge “EU for Disability Rights” in order to commit to promote the rights of persons with disabilities in the EU. Candidates can sign the pledge here or send a scanned copy of the signed pledge to andre.felix [at] edf-feph.org. For details, please click here.
- A report entitled “Democracy, Digital Accessibility and the European Union” launched by EDF and Siteimprove has highlighted the lack of digital accessibility of the European Parliament. The report analyses the accessibility of the official website of the parliaments of the 28 Member States including the European Parliament website. Read the report here.
Pacific Disability Forum
- The 6th Pacific Regional Conference on Disability was held from 25 February to 1 March, 2019 in Nadi, Fiji. The theme of the conference was “From Recognition to Realisation of Rights: Furthering Effective Partnerships for an Inclusive Pacific 2030 for Persons with Disabilities”. More details here.
World Federation of the Deaf
- The World Federation of the Deaf (WFD) has extended the deadline to make submissions for the WFD Awards that recognises individuals and organisations who are members of WFD for their exemplary work for the Deaf community. The new deadline to send nominations is 31 March, 2019. Read about the guidelines for the awards here.
- WFD has announced the list of countries which made successful submissions for the bid to host the XIX World Congress of WFD. These submissions will now be evaluated on the basis of which delegates of WFD Ordinary Members will vote at the WFD General Assembly in Paris in July 2019 in order to confirm one country from among these successful submissions. Read more here.
- WFD and the World Association of Sign Language Interpreters (WASLI) have awarded accreditation to three individuals – Chiara Di Monte (Italy), Ramas McRae (Australia) and Vivien Fontvielle (France). They join the current list of 27 WFD-WASLI accredited interpreters. More details here.
- Expression of interest are now open for Members for WFD-WASLI accredited International Sign Interpreter Professional Conduct Review Process Panel. This is a mechanism to address concerns, if any, about WFD-WASLI International Sign Interpreter’s professional conduct. Submissions must be sent by 10 March, 2019 to wfdpresident [at] gmail.com and president.wasli [at] gmail.com. More details here.
- The Deaf Association of Korea has become a full member of WFD. This is the first time that a DPO in the Democratic Republic of Korea has joined an international DPO as a full member. Read more on this here.
World Federation of the Deafblind
- The World Federation of the Deafblind (WFDB) held a workshop titled “At risk of exclusion from CRPD and SDGs implementation: Inequality and Persons with Deafblindness” based on its recently released global report, on 20-21 February, 2019 in Lima, Peru.
World Network of Users and Survivors of Psychiatry
- The World Network of Users and Survivors of Psychiatry (WNUSP) held the 2nd technical workshop on amplifying voices of persons with psychosocial disabilities from 18-20 February, 2019 in Kigali, Rwanda. This was organised with support from NUDOR and the National Organisation of Users and Survivors of Psychiatry in Rwanda (NOUSPR), with financial support from the Department of International Development (DFID) and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Finland. Read more details of the workshop here.
5. UN SYSTEM, AGENCIES AND MECHANISM
- Report on Accessibility of Conferences and Meetings of the United Nations: The Joint Inspection Unit (JIU) of the United Nations system has published its review on “Enhancing accessibility for persons with disabilities to conference and meetings of the United Nations system”. Read the main findings and the 10 recommendations outlined in the report here.
- Update on csw 63: The Commission on the Status of Women (CSW63) will take place in the UN headquarters in New York from 11-22 March, 2019. This year’s priority theme is “Social protection systems, access to public services and sustainable infrastructure for gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls”. The review theme is “Women’s empowerment and the link to sustainable development (agreed conclusions of the sixtieth session)”. The two-week schedule from 11-22 March, 2019 can be found here. Through IDA nominations four women with disabilities will be attending the CSW. IDA will be engaged with several key activities at this session. If you have any questions please reach out to Megan Smith msmith [at] ida-secretariat.org.
- Transformational Business Awards: The International Finance Corporation, jointly with the Financial Times has given out the FT/IFC Transformational Business Awards for the last 13 years. This year a special category on harnessing technology for persons with disabilities has been introduced, supported by DFID. Deadline to send nominations is 15 March, 2019. More details here.
- USAID fiscal year 2018 disability programme funding: The Center of Excellence on Democracy, Conflict and Humanitarian Assistance (DCHA) of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) is inviting interested USAID Missions to apply for FY18 Disability Funding to support programming in the area of Living Independently and Being Included in the Community (LIBC). Projects may be stand alone, targeted programmes or can be mainstreamed within larger Mission programmes. All proposals must be guided by the values and provisions of the CRPD. Deadline to send proposals is 12 July, 2019. More details here and here.
- USAID development innovation ventures (DIV) Programme: The DIV is a tool of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) to catalyse and support innovative products, services or applications in development. It provides grant funding to test new ideas, take strategic risks, build evidence of what works, and advance the best solutions. Applications are received on a rolling basis. More information here.
- Disability Rights Fund round 1 request for proposals: The Disability Rights Fund (DRF) has opened a Request for Proposals (RFP) for DPOs in Malawi, Myanmar and Nigeria as part of the 2019 Round 1 grantmaking. DPOs in Haiti and Indonesia will be eligible to apply by invitation only. Deadline for submissions is 22 March, 2019. Click here for more information in English, French and Bahasa.
- Applications for early stage researchers (ESRs): Applications are now invited for 15 Early Stage Researchers (ESRs) in a new Marie Curie Network focused on Disability Advocacy Research. Each researcher will work on a different topic based in one of eight universities and non-governmental organisations across Europe, and be supervised for preparation of a PhD. The ESRs will receive training in law, disability studies, public and social policy and related disciplines, as well as opportunities to put their skills into practice through secondment opportunities at a partner organisations. Detailed eligibility criteria and more information here.
- MNI funding open: Applications are now being sought by Mill Neck International that works with Deaf communities around the world for their 2019 funding cycle. The application deadline is 1 April, 2019. More information about the application process, in English and international sign language, and application forms here.
- International federation for spina bifida and hydrocephalus is looking for two new staff members to join their team in Brussels. The two vacancies are for a Finance and Administration Officer and for a European Policy Officer. Deadline to apply for both positions is 20 March, 2019. Read more and apply.
- The International Federation of Hard of Hearing People (IFHOH) seeks an experienced researcher to coordinate and conduct a needs assessment on the inclusive education of hard of hearing children in Nepal and Uganda. Deadline: 11 March, 2019. Read more and apply here. To read Terms of reference, please click here.