International cooperation (IC) is a fundamental tool to achieve disability rights and inclusion. The CRPD is the only human rights treaty that contains a stand-alone article on IC. However, the follow-up and implementation of that provision has not reached its full potential. It is not well known within the mainstream development cooperation community nor among groups of main donors, such as the G20 and the G7. It is key to find avenues for engaging these actors in disability rights cooperation, and to better use Article 32 to foster the implementation of the Convention.
Many donors have a policy of mainstreaming a disability perspective into their international development cooperation and assistance activities. This is a good practice, and the international community should ensure that IC projects are not building new barriers. While mainstreaming disability rights into all development efforts is essential, targeted IC projects are equally important for propelling progress. These projects can focus on specific areas like inclusive education, improvement of physical and digital accessibility and fostering innovation in assistive technologies, among many other issues.
The active participation of OPDs as meaningful partners in international cooperation programs is paramount. IC can also be leveraged to strengthen and support the disability movement. It would be useful to map existing financing mechanisms for OPDs, to identify existing barriers and gaps, achieve a better coordination of existing finances and better understand how to leverage more resources.
The international community can learn from each other’s knowledge, experience, good practices and lessons learned, thus building on progress already made, and avoiding the repetition of the same mistakes. But mechanisms for sharing information on advancing disability rights are not available. An accessible repository or hub of rights-based good practices and capacity strengthening opportunities should be created, based on experiences on the ground. Information should also be available at the community level. OPDs and CRPD Committee members and former members could be actively involved in activities on awareness raising, training and capacity building.