About the Brief
Published in May 2019, the brief was developed alongside CIP’s first discussion paper, “Why Progress on Inclusion Demands Action on Budget,” co-authored with Polly Meeks, and drew on CIP’s early work with the Pacific Disability Forum in Fiji, Equals-Centre for Promotion of Social Justice in India, and the Europe Foundation in Georgia.
Governments love to call their spending “inclusive.” This brief on CRPD compliant disability budgeting, published by the Center for Inclusive Policy (CIP), asks a sharper question: inclusive by what standard? As more countries pass legislation to implement the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), the terms inclusive budgeting, disability-responsive budgeting, and CRPD-compliant budgeting have started getting used as if they mean the same thing. CIP argues they don’t.
What's the Difference Between These Terms?
The brief boils it down to three fundamental questions: Are sufficient public funds being spent to realize the rights of all persons with disabilities? Are funds allocated to disability spent on initiatives that promote inclusion? Are budget and procurement processes themselves fully inclusive? National budgets can be labeled “inclusive” or “disability-responsive” and still fail to positively answer all three of these questions.
Why Isn't "Disability-Responsive" Enough?
Because governments can, in good faith, count spending that doesn’t actually advance inclusion or they can misrepresent how much they actually spend to promote inclusion. The brief flags several ways this happens. One way is counting funding for important programs like general immunisation campaigns or general education,as disability spending; these programs are key and likely benefit people with disabilities, but they often don’t count as disability-specific programming. Counting them as disability funding is a misrepresentation. Another example would be when governments fund programs that directly contradict CRPD standards, such as segregated special education or coercive psychiatric institutions and count this as disability spending.
What Does CRPD-Compliant Budgeting Actually Require?
It’s a higher, more specific bar. Budget planning and execution must strictly follow CRPD provisions, developed in close consultation with representative organisations of persons with disabilities, including those focused on women and children. CRPD-compliant budgeting has a series of standards: public resources can’t finance programs that contradict the Convention andnon-compliant spending has to be reformed or reallocated on a set timeline. Every stage, from taxation to procurement to local service delivery, has to be assessed against these standards, not just headline allocations.
How Much Should Countries Be Spending?
The brief notes that context matters. Higher-income EU countries already spend, on average, at least 2.1% of GDP on disability, though austerity measures have often undercut that commitment. Most low- and middle-income countries spend far less, often below 0.5% of GDP, meaning CRPD implementation will require real increases, not just reallocation of what little already exists.
