Women with Disabilities in DevelopmentWorld Bank

March 10, 2009

USAID’s Approach to Integrating Women with Disabilities into Development

• Mainstream women with disabilities into general programming and activities

• Finding opportunities to build capacity of women with disabilities and DPOs for women

Successful Mainstreaming Approaches

• Working with the Women in Development Office (WID)

• Including women with disabilities in project design, implementation and evaluation

• Investing in Women and Development (IWID) fellowship

Building Capacity of Women with Disabilities

• Supporting of programs and encouraging subgrants for women with disabilities

• Increasing resources for women with disabilities

Challenges

• Poor general understanding of gender issues

• Continued need to integrate women with disability in mainstream gender programs and all development programs

• Lack of good practices and research

• Limited capacity of DPOs

Moving Forward

• Take time and build capacity

• Identify opportunities for inclusion

• Begin to evaluate and build best practices

• Realize nothing about us, without us

For more information on USAID’s policies and programs visit:

www.usaid.gov/about_usaid/disability