CBM launches new disability and gender analysis tool

25 years on from the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (open link in new tab), the work to bring about real equality for women and girls is still a challenge, at the global and local levels. For women and girls with disability, this is an even greater challenge. Disability is not gender neutral and people with disabilities of all impairment groups and gender identities face multiple forms of discrimination and disadvantage, including much higher rates of abuse and violence.

CBM’s new Disability and Gender Analysis Toolkit has been developed to support staff, partners and allies in strengthening capacity to address systemic and deeply entrenched discriminatory practices. It provides practical tools for stronger disability and gender analysis to inform our planning, practice and systems. The toolkit provides practical assessment templates and guidance for individuals, organisations and programmes, to identify strengths and gaps and to develop focussed action plans to improve practice.

Kathy Al Ju’beh, CBM’s lead on capacity development and co-author of the toolkit, says: “It was important for us to develop a practical resource with staff, partners and Disabled Peoples’ Organisations that could help us to evidence how to bring about gender transformative change and disability equality in all areas of our work. Quite early on we realised that it was not enough to focus on programmes, but that we equally needed a resource that could address individual attitudes, as well as organisational structures, systems and practices.”

This open source toolkit is available in Spanish (open link in new tab), French (open link in new tab) and English (open link in new tab), and available to other organisations looking to strengthen their approach to disability and gender equality.It can also be adapted to address other marginalised identities. The toolkit is now being disseminated across CBM to support staff, local partners and alliance partners, through networks such as Bond and the Gender and Development Network in the UK.

Emma Symonds, CBM UK’s Programme Manager and Gender Focal Point presented the toolkit with Kathy Al Ju’beh at Bond’s Disability and Development Group: “Ensuring that our programmes are truly ‘leaving no one behind’ means listening to people of all genders who are living with disabilities, understanding their different needs, building activities to meet those needs into programme design and budgets, collecting disaggregated data and involving them in monitoring and evaluation processes. This tool will help us to do this at every stage of the programme cycle and hold ourselves accountable to gender equality and disability inclusion.”

CBM seeks to continually build its own capacity in promoting disability and gender equality for all. For any feedback or to request for further information, please contact Kathy.Aljubeh@cbm-global.org (open link in new tab).