Meeting the challenge of the rights-based approach to disability: The changing role of disability-specific NGOs and DPOs

During 2010-2012, five disability-specific non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and disabled people’s organisations (DPOs) in East Africa – inEthiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda – formed a learning community to focus on developing their role in disability mainstreaming, responding to the ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). In this community, the formulation of this new role was monitored to explore the transition from working for persons with disability to facilitating others in development cooperation to adopt a rights-based approach to disability through inclusion of persons with disabilities. Our analysis highlights experiences of disability specific NGOs and DPOs as they expand their focus from disability-specific aspects to inclusion in mainstream development and their role from that of implementers/advocates to facilitators of change. Both internal capacities and external factors influence this transition. In conclusion, lessons learned in the process of adopting the new role in the implementation of the CRPD are presented.