Global Disability Watch (2014-2018) was a one stop platform monitoring, collating and reporting timely, accessible and usable ground driven information on disability, disability rights violations and development policy and practice from a range of global contexts, prioritising the global South. Working with a diverse team of global partners, Global Disability Watch reports and also investigates, providing effective tools for focused advocacy, protection and assistance. Global Disability Watch advocates for and promotes inclusive, respectful and responsive policy, humanitarian and development responses.
GDW works with and across a range of intersectionalities including age, race and ethnicity, class, gender, sexual orientation, poverty and legal status among others.
Global Disability Watch is a voluntary, non-profit global programme set up and run by The Critical Institute
Note: Global Disability Watch was active till 2018.
Our Mission
Our overarching focus is protection, poverty reduction and the promotion of social justice among the most marginalised and oppressed persons with disabilities. Global Disability Watch works to challenge and shift barriers experienced by persons with disabilities and their families and protect and advocate for rights through solid investigation, advocacy, networking and concrete action in fulfillment of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Our Approach
Global Disability Watch works in bottom-up, participatory and inclusive ways. We collaborate with trusted and reliable ground correspondents and experts to critically analyse, synthesise and produce fact-checked, incisive and up to date professional reporting. We also conduct rigorous ethical investigation through our own expert field researchers and partners. Global Disability Watch catalyses immediate action through direct advocacy and by supporting strategic alliances and networks between researchers, activists, policy makers and practitioners. These approaches enable us to effectively fill key information and knowledge gaps; and drive targeted advocacy, policy and practice on the ground benefiting persons with disabilities.
How we work
Global Disability Watch operates in sensitive and ethical ways committed to respecting, protecting and promoting people’s safety, dignity, rights and freedom at all times. We are committed to producing fact checked, carefully analysed information that prioritises local voices, that is not limited to news value, and that supports and triggers direct local action with high and sustainable impact. In this regard, GDW consistently collaborates with and supports efforts by local and other activists , especially civil society with common goals to challenge and shift disablism and oppression.
GDW is not aligned to and does not promote any political, religious or economic agenda. GDW’s work is grounded in and driven by its ethical code of practice.