Disability Takes Center Stage at the ICASA Conference: Launch of Important New Resource for the Inclusion of Disabled People

December 6, 2011

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia — AIDS-Free World, in collaboration with an international group of activists, academics and disabled people, is pleased to announce the launch of a new publication entitled a “Framework for Inclusion of Disability in National Strategic Plans on HIV & AIDS.”

Despite the mounting evidence on the interrelationship between disability and AIDS, disabled people have been largely excluded from national planning efforts on AIDS.  A key factor in this work is the development of National Strategic Plans (NSPs), which invariably fail to address issues related to people with disabilities. We believe that the inclusion of disabled people in the NSP development process is a first step to adopting a human rights-based approach for disabled people based on principles of universal design and reasonable accommodation. The new framework presented in this publication represents the first concrete attempt to systemically introduce issues of disability, access and the human rights of disabled people into the process. 

The launch of this valuable new tool took place at the ICASA conference on December 6, 2011.  For your own copy of the new resource, click here (PDF, 205KB).