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Please be aware that the content herein has not been peer reviewed. It consists of personal reflections, insights, and learnings of the contributor(s). It may not be exhaustive, nor does it aim to be authoritative knowledge.
Title
Please provide a name for your action learning plan.
Effective participation of Persons with Disabilities in Somalia society through Capacitating OPDs and creating digital accessibility
Challenge statement
Challenge type: If you are working on multiple challenges, please indicate if this is your "big bet" or "exploratory" challenge.
Please note: we ask you to only submit a maximum of 3 challenges - 1x Big Bet, 2x Exploratory. Each challenge must be submitted individually.
EXPLORATORY
Challenge statement: What is your challenge? (Please answer in specific terms: "Our challenge is that...”.)
The challenge is to enhance the inclusion of PWDs through providing key stakeholders (OPDs, Government, Media) with a set of tools and actions. equipping civil society organizations (OPDs) with necessary skills to advocate for PWDs rights. Government and media to be trained for disability sensitive policies and narrative and reducing digital divide through improving digital accessibly of PWDs.
Background: What is the history of your challenge? What is causing or driving it? Who is involved? How does the current situation look like? What undesired effects does it produce?
On2019, the Federal Government of Somalia ratified the CRPD Convention, which is legally binding on States parties, to meet its obligations in relation to the rights of PwDs. Subsequently, the Somali Federal Parliament approved the National Disability Agency Bill in November 2018. The legislation set out the establishment of the National Disability Agency (NDA), which is tasked with addressing the challenges faced by PwDs and ensuring their inclusion in the political, economic, and social development of the country. The NDA has developed the Somalia Disability act which passed through the cabinet and currently awaiting the Federal parliament discussion and approval.
This Challenge contributes towards training and capacity of building of relevant national partners and support to national institutions and partners on a human rights-based approach to disability as well as to mainstreaming advocacy, and strategic outreach and enhancement of digital inclusion and accessibly.
Quantitative evidence: What (official) data sources do you have on this challenge that better exemplifies the importance and urgency of this frontier challenge? You can add text, a link, or a picture.
According to experts, due to the prolonged conflicts and lack early medical interventions, it's estimated that 15%-20% of the Somalia's populations have disabilities. The NDA is currently undertaking a door-door survey across Somalia on the situation of PWDs.
Qualitative evidence: What weak signals have you recently spotted that characterizes its urgency? Please provide qualitative information that better exemplifies the importance and urgency of this frontier challenge. You can add text, a link, or a picture.
The UN
Disability Inclusion Strategy (UNDIS) indicators identified and categorized into four main areas as key priorities: Leaving No One Behind: Inclusive Design and the Inclusion of Persons with Disabilities; Capacity Building and Knowledge Generation; Innovation and Digital Development; and Targeted Livelihoods Interventions.
The UNDP Somalia Accelerator lab has conducted a series of meeting, capacity gap and training need assessments, discussions with Organization of people with disabilities, Government and media as well as an assistive technology hackathon to identify gaps and priorities of PWDs and better design different activities on technical capacity building, policy and digital inclusion. The accelerator Lab has also conducted an online assessment on the platforms and showed accessibility errors related to contrast levels and structural.
From these stakeholders' meetings and assessments, the Accelerator Lab recognized that PWDs are among most vulnerable and marginalized groups in Somali society in terms of individual level and institutional level and the need to have a tailored interventions in enhancing their capacity.
Value proposition: What added value or unique value proposition is your Accelerator Lab bringing to solving this challenge? Why is it your Lab that needs to work on this challenge and not other actors within UNDP, other stakeholders in the country respectively? Why is it worth investing resources to this challenge?
The goal of the accelerator lab is to experiment with a portfolio approach by looking the issue of PWDs from Media and public discourse, OPDs capabilities to advocate and mobilize resources through alternative finance, and digital accessibilities angles. The Accelerator Lab is testing the area-based programming and selected one the states in Somalia as an area to implement the PWDs inclusion activities.
Short “tweet” summary: We would like to tweet what you are working on, can you summarize your challenge in a maximum of 280 characters?
UNDP Somalia Accelerator Lab is promoting PWDs inclusion through enhancing OPDs capacity to advocate for the rights of PWDs, engaging media for a more sensitive reporting and creating digital lab facilities to address the digital divide.
Partners
Who are your top 5 partners for this challenge? Please submit from MOST to LEAST important and state Name, Sector and a brief description of the (intended) collaboration.
Please state the name of the partner:
Puntland Disabilty organizations Network(PDON)
What sector does our partner belong to?
Civil Society
Please provide a brief description of the collaboration.
The Puntland Disability Organizations Network (PDON) partnership is crucial for our challenge. as the state's network responsible for developing the capacity of OPDs and biggest advocate for PWDs inclusion in the state, PDON engagement is a key for a successful design of the activities.
Is this a new and unusual partner for UNDP?
No
Learning questions
Learning question: What is your learning question for this challenge? What do you need to know or understand to work on your challenge statement?
How can a portfolio of actions targeting key stakeholders lead to PWDs inclusion enhancement?
What are the main barriers and opportunities to digital accessibility of PWDs?
To what stage(s) in the learning cycle does your learning question relate?
Sense, Explore, Test
Usage of methods: Relating to your choice above, how will you use your methods & tools for this learning question? What value do these add in answering your learning question?
The Somalia's Accelerator Lab is using sensemaking to identify challenges and opportunities facing both PWDs and OPDs in Somalia as well as weaknesses, strengths and priorities of OPDs. Participatory approach to design activities and facilities targeting PWDs. Proof of concept and pilots to test the effectiveness of portfolio approach and area-based programming. Hackathons to generate homegrown assistive technology solutions for PWDs.
Existing data gaps: Relating to your choice above, what existing gaps in data or information do these new sources of data addressing? What value do these add in answering your learning question?
A main challenge related to the survey is late reception of results from the NDA survey on disability estimations for Somalia and luck of specific accurate quantitative data on the number PWDs and the type of disabilities in Somalia. This lack of data was highlighted in all stakeholders' meetings and discussions we had. Having this data would have been a great input to our challege.
Closing
Early leads to grow: Think about the possible grow phase for this challenge - who might benefit from your work on this challenge or who might be the champions in your country that you should inform or collaborate with early on to help you grow this challenge?
The insights from this challenge could be beneficial for the UNDP Somalia Rule of Law unit for their implementation of a project empowering PWDs and the activities and facilities carried out/created during this challenge could be scaled by the ROL project in partnership with the NDA.
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4Quality education
8Decent work and economic growth
10Reduced innequalities
17Partnerships for the goals
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