OUR GOALS &
STRATEGIC PLAN
OUR GOALS
GOAL 1
Inclusive and responsive social protection systems
Inclusive and responsive social protection systems are eveloped and adopted that promote participation by people with disabilities and their family members that take account of disability extra costs and support needs.
Too often in the past, social protection policies have been simply aimed at maintaining a minimum level of income. Policies specifically designed for people with disabilities were seen as wage replacements for people who cannot work and, in effect, promoted exclusion. CIP believes inclusive social protection policies are those designed to promote and enable full participation.
To do this, receipt of disability benefits should be divorced from “ability to work” and should center on covering the extra costs that people with disabilities currently incur – both by providing the goods and services needed for participation but also by reducing barriers in the environment that generate those costs. Moreover, they should recognize the impact of gender and other characteristics on how disability costs are incurred.
In partnership with UN agencies and other researchers, CIP has been instrumental in developing and applying methodologies to estimate the extra costs of disability. This has been done on the ground in Georgia and Peru, through methodological think pieces, and is currently ongoing in Nigeria, Tamil Nadu and Fiji. CIP will continue to learn from these ongoing studies and work with stakeholders to improve the methodology, expand its application, and use the results to make policy recommendations.
For social protection policies to be inclusive, information is required on the support needs of people with disabilities. This information is also more appropriate for assessing the nature of disability as compared to more medical approaches. To that end, CIP has been working with countries to develop better disability assessments that can be implemented according to the resources and capacities that exist in a low- or middle-income country’s context. Such a tool was developed and implemented in partnership with local governments in the Philippines.
Consultations have also taken place in Armenia, Oman, and Palestine. CIP will continue to work with governments, OPDs and other stakeholders to refine disability assessment methodologies in an effort to improve the design and implementation of disability policies and programs.
Our particular focus will be to ensure that:
1.1 An increased number of countries use data on extra costs and support needs to inform social protection systems
1.2 An increased number of countries use accessible, comprehensive and reliable individual disability and needs assessment systems
GOAL 2
Sustainable community support systems
Sustainable systems are developed to respond to and support persons with disabilities & their families to have choice & control living their lives and participating in their communities on an equal basis.
Community support systems are the combination of services, networks, people, and products that assist individuals with disabilities in carrying out daily activities and participating in their communities, thus enabling them to live independently with choices equal to others. This support ranges from decision-making support and personal assistance, to housing, transportation, and other community services. Community support systems for persons with disabilities are receiving increasing attention, as reflected in the priorities of international agencies and civil society organizations.
CIP has been actively working to position community support as a key aspect of disability inclusion, emphasizing the need to ensure a gender perspective and engage with the care agenda. We have spearheaded multiple initiatives aimed at spotlighting this discussion, supporting national and international stakeholders to understand the gaps, opportunities, and priorities in this area, and to develop a rights-based framework for delivering community support. Going forward, we are committed to building a more robust knowledge base to stimulate policy advocacy and reform around support and care for people with disabilities and to actively support stakeholders to apply that knowledge.
The expansion of the care agenda, especially in Latin America, presents a unique opportunity to mobilize political attention and investment in community support to reduce informal care and tackle gender inequalities, and we have begun to explore entry points to ensure a disability perspective in care systems and policies.
Our particular focus will be to ensure that:
2.1 Care and support agendas consider intersecting forms of oppression
2.2 Policy options are developed to support low- and middle-income countries in implementing disability-inclusive care and support systems
2.3 National care systems are guided to be disability-inclusive and to promote choice and control
GOAL 3
High quality data on disability
High quality data on disability is widely collected and appropriately used by all stakeholders, including censuses, surveys and administrative systems
Data is important for several reasons. Firstly, there is a need to understand the current situation and motivate action. For inclusion, we need accurate ways to identify people with disabilities to get estimates of prevalence and to disaggregate outcome indicators. But to develop policies to combat exclusion, we must also collect data on the environment to better understand barriers to participation. Then we need data to monitor the implementation of those policies and evaluate their results. CIP staff have deep and internationally recognized experience in the design of disability data collection, both for censuses and surveys but also for administrative data. CIP
staff have supported such data collection in dozens of countries – often in conjunction with the UN Washington Group on Disability Statistics – and most recently in Kenya, Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam, as well as offering guidance to various UN agencies on creating indicators for monitoring the CRPD.
We are continuing to support governments, international agencies, and Organizations of Persons with Disabilities (OPDs) in their efforts to collect and analyze data, including working with African governments to produce a regional report for the upcoming 2025 Global Disability Summit.
One source of data often overlooked is budgetary data. CIP has developed a methodology for CRPD compliant budget analysis that can provide practical information to OPDs for informing their advocacy efforts. We have conducted this analysis in India for several years and are now training OPDs in several countries on how to undertake this analysis and partnering with the International Disability Alliance on developing training courses. Our long-term aim is to have a global report on how governments are using their budgets to promote disability inclusion.
Our particular focus will be to ensure that there is:
3.1 Increased ability and use of data for policy, advocacy and implementation, including data on environmental barrier
3.2 Widespread adoption of CRPD compliant budgeting analysis by OPDs
GOAL 4
A strong disability sector equipped to achieve change
Various stakeholders face different challenges when it comes to developing and implementing inclusive policies. At times, OPDs do not have the policy analysis or research background to provide proposals that are convincing to policymakers. Policymakers and other development workers often do not have significant knowledge about inclusive policies. Academic researchers often do not apply their learnings to practical policy considerations. CIP looks to draw upon and supplement the strengths of these communities to catalyze them to work more effectively together.
Our approach, building on the issues we have identified above, is to be constantly on the lookout for other important, emerging areas that have challenges and opportunities that we can address in conjunction with other stakeholders. We do this through active engagement with a wide range of actors in the disability sector.
To bolster the capacities of the sector, we have developed a fellowship programme that provides financial assistance, global exposure, and mentorship to individuals with disabilities from low- and middle-income countries who are working on, or aspire to work on, inclusive policy or policy research. Our aspiration is for their involvement in the programme to enable them to contribute to evidence-based policy change.
Our particular focus will be to ensure that:
4.1 The disability sector has the technical advice it needs to drive local and national policy change
4.2 The disability sector can identify opportunities and threats to reform of policy and respond appropriately
4.3 Individuals with disabilities are capacitated to engage in policy change
GOAL 5
Sustainable capacity to expand operations
CIP has sustainable capacity to undertake expanded operations, programming, & funding with strong accountability
CIP has expanded in recent years and our operations have become more complex. To achieve our externally facing goals it is important that we build our capacity to support and carry out our work, and to maintain the flexibility to concentrate our efforts where we feel they will be most effective. This goal reflects our strong commitment to ensure effective systems and strategies are in place to support the effective delivery of the ambitions of this strategy.
Our particular focus will be to have in place:
5.1 An effective fundraising strategy which can support the delivery of our strategic objectives
5.2 The right people on the Board with clear roles, and the processes and systems in place to deliver effective governance
5.3 Human resources systems within CIP which provide employees with clear guidance on their responsibilities, benefits and operational processes
5.4 Internal communications and operational systems which adequately address employee work needs
REFLECTED ACROSS OUR GOALS
CIP’s work prioritizes and integrates a number of key drivers across all of our goals. We emphasize gender and intersectionality, acknowledging the diverse experiences of individuals potentially affected by various forms of oppression. We incorporate these insights into our actions and products. Understanding the crucial role of organizations of persons with disabilities, we actively involve them in our work, fostering collaborations and partnerships. Recognizing the widespread impact of climate change, we incorporate climate considerations into our analysis and efforts, contemplating the future of social protection and community support in a post-climate crisis world. We maintain a lifecycle approach, aware that individuals’ needs and challenges change across different life stages. Lastly, we focus on the intricate relationship between poverty and disability, directing most of our efforts towards the Global South. We propose practical solutions that consider local public finance realities, ensuring our strategies are feasible, sustainable, and can be effectively implemented within existing economic constraints
OUR STRATEGIC APPROACH
CIP works in partnership, integrating research, policy analysis, strategic thinking, capacity building, and communications to catalyze progress towards our goals.
The key elements of each approach are:
- Research will continue be undertaken to fill knowledge gaps and provide evidence in support of achieving the goals of this strategy.
- We will continue to employ qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods, always with an eye to using participatory research approaches and an intersectional lens.
- The dissemination of results will always be undertaken in a manner appropriate, understandable, and useable in Global South.
- Policy analysis will always consider the country context, taking into account national development plans and fiscal constraints, to yield practical recommendations.
- OPD involvement is critical to the design and evaluation of policies.
- All analysis will take place within a human rights framework, and with an intersectional approach.
- Policy analysis will be guided by strategic outcomes operating within a systems approach.
- Capacity building will continue take a variety of forms – in-person and on-line courses, webinars, toolkits, videos, participation in workshops and conferences, etc.
- Our fellowship program will continue to mentor early to mid-career people with disabilities from the Global South, to help create the next generation of policy analysts and researchers working on key inclusive policy areas.
- All materials produced have been and will continue to be open source and supported by CIP staff.
- All our communication will remain accessible to people with all types of disabilities.
- We will continue to aim to make all of our work understandable by diverse audiences, be that by level of technical expertise, lived experience, or background.
- However, our key audience have been and will continue to be those in the Global South and those working on social and economic development in the Global South.
- Our partnerships will continue to include OPDs and development agencies and other potential stakeholders, increasing communication between groups, drawing things along in a non-bureaucratic fashion where possible. Catalyzing upon each other’s strengths and resources, and providing the flexibility to move.
- We will continue to nurture thematic/strategic partnerships, identifying the key partners for each goal.
- We see a strength of CIP as a catalyzing force to identify knowledge gaps, connect stakeholders, build narratives, and provide tools that can inform policy discussions and development.
Read our comprehensive strategic plan to learn more about our values and objectives.