Disability and the Pacific

The UN estimates that 650 million people worldwide have a disability. Approximately 80 per cent of this population live in developing countries with Asia and the Pacific being home to two thirds of these people with disability. People with disability, no matter their disability or country of origin, represent the most disadvantaged and marginalised group within any society.

As a rich and developed Pacific nation, Australia has a responsibility to its Asia Pacific partners and colleagues with disability. For this reason, PWDA has made a commitment to develop effective and meaningful partnerships with its regional partners to enhance their capacity for self-representation, to build unity and further strengthen the global disability rights movement.

Pacific Disability Forum

Established in 2002, the Pacific Disability Forum (PDF) works towards the achievement of inclusive, barrier-free, socially just and gender equitable societies that recognise the human rights, citizenship, contribution and potential of people with disabilities in Pacific Countries and territories.

The PDF promotes and facilitates Pacific regional cooperation on disability-related concerns for the benefit of people with disability.

The PDF is instrumental to building the capacity of disabled people’s organisations (DPOs) in the Pacific and is guided by the international and regional human rights framework, including the

• Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD),
• the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW),
• the UN Asia Pacific Plan for people with disability and
• the Biwako Millennium Framework for Action (BMF).

PWDA has been involved with the PDF since its inception and was represented on the inaugural Executive Committee of the PDF for four  years.  PWDA works in partnership with the PDF on advocacy and capacity development projects and values highly the expertise, skills and commitment they bring to the disability rights movement.

To learn more about the PDF, please visit their website.

Our work with Indonesian DPOs

PWDA, as part of DPO Australia, is working with DPOs from Indonesia as part of our community-led research.

We hosted a workshop in November 2018 featuring different example of community driven research that Australian DPOs and academic partners have been involved with.

• Accessible, inclusive, relevant and intersectional field work/data collection
• How to manage the data you collect, ethics and confidentiality
• How to evaluate and use your research

DPOs colleagues had the opportunity to present some of their current advocacy/research priorities, look at the best way to approach these priorities in the Indonesian context, and how DPOs can gather and use evidence to support their work.

Find out more about the workshop.

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