Disability Rights Fund

Fantastic news that the United Nations General Assembly resolution on access to assistive technologies was adopted today.

Assistive technologies includes things such as hearing aids, screen-reading software, and other digital systems. They can play an important part in helping people with disabilities participate more fully in society.

The International Disability Alliance welcomes the adoption of the first-ever United Nations General Assembly resolution on access to assistive technology. This is a historic political milestone, and we thank Pakistan for its leadership in facilitating this groundbreaking initiative.

Access to appropriate, affordable and quality assistive technology is essential for the autonomy, equality and participation of persons with disabilities and others who use it.

While technology can support people in exercising their rights, society must remove the barriers that deny them. IDA will continue working to ensure that assistive technology policies are shaped by persons with disabilities and connected to the wider transformation of laws, systems, services, and communities, as required by the .

ATscale, the Global Partnership for Assistive Technology UNICEF World Health Organization (WHO)

For the past two weeks we've been in close communication with our grantees in Indonesia and Nepal, following the 7.7 magnitude earthquake on 15th August and the devasting flash flood on 26th August.

In Indonesia, DRF grantee Himpunan Wanita Disabilitas Indonesia (HWDI) told us that they had identified around 154 people with disabilities affected by the earthquake. This figure will likely keep rising, with HWDI returning to affected sites and families to further understand their most urgent needs, and how assistance can be received safely.

Similarly, in Nepal, DRF grantee the Federation of Women with Disability-Nepal Page (FWDN) has not been able to communicate with many groups of persons with disabilities due to the loss of mobile and internet access, as well as overall electricity. From the information that they have received, they already know of several women with disabilities affected by the emergency.

Our thoughts are with the people impacted by both disasters, and we will proceed to support our grantees in those areas as best as we can. As we continue to monitor the situation, DRF calls on humanitarian actors to consider and reach people with disabilities in their emergency response. We also know these won't be the last climate disasters we will see in the next few years, and that's why we have climate justice as one of our seven cross-cutting priorities embedded in our strategic plan.

“Deaf women who are leaders are very few due to negative attitudes against them, believing that Deaf women can’t be in leadership."

Through our BRIDGE project, funded by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH on behalf of Bundesministerium für wirtschaftliche Zusammenarbeit und Entwicklung (BMZ), more than 800 women with disabilities from 16 countries across East, Southern, and West Africa participated in a regional polling exercise and assessment to share their experiences, priorities, and aspirations for leadership and inclusion.

The reports provide a roadmap for future action and support efforts to ensure that the voices and priorities of all women with disabilities remain at the centre of policy and programme development across Africa.

Find out more here: https://www.disabilityrightsfund.org/2026/07/14/new-reports-highlight-leadership-of-women-with-disabilities-across-africa/

We went into Grantmakers for Effective Organizations (GEO)'s holding both hope and grief. That didn't go away over the course of the week—it deepened, and opened space to reckon with other tensions along the way. Which ultimately pushed us to ask: what do we actually do differently now?

DRF's Connie Laurin-Bowie and Jen Bokoff wrote a reflection for Alliance magazine that grapples with what we heard and gets specific about what it means for how we fund, collaborate, and show up across movements.

One thing we kept coming back to: disability was largely absent from conversations where it absolutely belongs—democracy, AI, child mental health, climate, cross-movement solidarity, and more. Disability isn't a topic for one session. It belongs in all of them.

Whether you were at or are following the reflections online, we'd love to hear your thoughts. Share a comment below or on the article itself.

From tensions to forward actions - Alliance magazine At last week’s , we felt the joy of reconnecting with long-time philanthropy friends and engaging in hopeful conversations alongside the grief and pain of volatile democracy and underinvestment in movements. As an organisation working …

Last week, DRF's Washington Sati and Chrissy Zimba joined Lena Bheeroo of ADD International, Stephen Ikonya of The Action Foundation, Esther Kyozira of NUDIPU-Uganda, and Anthony Mang'eni of Women for Women International at the East Africa Philanthropy Network conference for "Inclusive by Design: Participatory Governance and the Constituencies the Ecosystem Has Designed Around."

Their session named something the sector often dances around: philanthropic systems frequently exclude the very communities they claim to serve—through funding criteria, compliance requirements, and governance structures that were never designed with those communities in mind.

Participants explored what it looks like when persons with disabilities, residents of informal settlements, and communities at the intersection of multiple exclusions move from the margins to the center of grantmaking architecture not only as beneficiaries, but as decision-makers.

A key provocation emerged across the session: consultation is not participation. Meaningful inclusion requires co-design, flexible and accessible funding systems, and lived experience embedded in governance, and not added on at the end.
DRF's participatory grantmaking model where persons with disabilities shape funding decisions at every level anchored that conversation.

We will pose the same question here as we did to session participants: what work needs to happen in the broader funding ecosystem to embed meaningful participation and inclusion? Share your thoughts in the comments.

ID: Washington, Stephen, Chrissy, Lena, Esther, and Anthony wearing conference badges and smiling in front of their presentation screen.

At , we joined partners to look back at our movement’s growth since the adoption 20 years ago—and look forward to the future.
A new generation of activists is writing the next chapter. They represent the broad spectrum of gender and sexual diversity, impairments, and walks of life in our communities, and they are tackling climate, health, economic and social injustice working side-by-side with non-disabled allies.
They are shaping the present and future of disability rights--and we are here to support them every step of the way.

International Disability Alliance

At the conference in Melbourne, our movement came together to shape the present and future of the fight for and women’s rights. Powerful interventions by Maryangel Garcia-Ramos Guadiana from Women Enabled International, our very own Maria Ní Fhlatharta, members of the Pacific Disability Forum, the Disability Pride Hub, Fiji Disabled Peoples Federation, and many others demonstrated a mature movement led by confident and determined activists. Their message to advocates, funders, and all decision-makers was clear: without persons with disabilities, any victory remains incomplete.
Read our full editorial here 👇
https://www.disabilityrightsfund.org/2026/06/10/2026-women-deliver-conference/

The disability movement at the 2026 Women Deliver conference - Disability Rights Fund We came to the Women Deliver conference in Melbourne to put disability rights at the center of the fight for gender equality. Our message was loud and clear, and we are starting to see results. Twenty years ago, the UN adopted the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Shortly after,...

Dear friends,

Next week, we’ll be at the 19th Conference of States Parties to the ( ) co-hosting events, strengthening partnerships, promoting the work of our grantees, and advancing our movement’s priorities. We invite you to join us at the following events:

📌 Refugees with disabilities: resource gaps and recommendations for grant-makers (Virtual) - June 8, 10:00 AM EDT
Hosted by UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency; co-organized by the Global Network of Refugees With Disabilities, the International Refugee Assistance Project and DRF.

📌 Centering youth, women, and gender-diverse communities of persons with psychosocial disabilities in the deinstitutionalization agenda (Virtual)
- June 9, 10:00 AM EDT
Organized by Transforming Communities for Inclusion (TCI), Center for Independent Living - CIL, Kathmandu, and DRF.

📌 Supporting OPDs and civil society — celebrating the 20th anniversary of the CRPD (In-person at UN Headquarters, Conf. Room 6) - June 9, 1:15 PM EDT
Organized by the European Union and the European Disability Forum European Disability Forum.

📌 Shaping the Future of Disability Inclusion: From CRPD at 20 to the Global Disability Summit 2028 (In-person at UN Headquarters, Conf. Room 11)
- June 9, 3:00 PM EDT
Organized by the Permanent Mission of the State of Qatar to the UN in New York; co-sponsored by the Ministry of Social Development وزارة التنميـــة الإجتماعيــــة - الاردن (State of Qatar) and the International Disability Alliance.

🔗 Find out more and register here:
https://www.disabilityrightsfund.org/2026/05/27/19th-session-of-the-conference-of-states-parties-to-the-convention-on-the-rights-of-persons-with-disabilities-cosp/

Women Enabled International; Korea Disability Forum; European Network on Independent Living - ENIL; Inclusion International; Validity Foundation

The Disability Rights Fund's call for Letters of Interest (LOIs) for 2026 is open!

We invite eligible organizations of persons with disabilities from Haiti, Sub-Saharan Africa, South & South-East Asia and Pacific Island Countries to submit Letters of Interest by Sunday, 21st June, 2026.

Details on the application process are available here: https://disabilityrightsfund.us-1.smartsimple.com/ex/ex_routing.jsp?token=HwoPTxkbYA%3D%3D&lang=1.

Virtual information sessions will be held for applicants in case of questions about the call and application process. We invite you to register for the webinar session in your specific region and time zone via our website: https://www.disabilityrightsfund.org/grantseekers/

Image ID: A purple graphic with DRF logo and a photo of women holding hands. Text: Now Open! 2026 Grant Round and details of the round mentioned in the text above