In a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) announced today, the World Bank and Leonard Cheshire Disability will focus their collaboration on a number of specific substantive areas through joint research, capacity-building, and building on successful models.
“We look forward to our collaboration with Leonard Cheshire Disability to advance our common objective of more inclusive and sustainable communities by establishing common standards and developing tools to better safeguard the rights and needs of persons with disabilities,” said Carmen Nonay, Practice Manager for the Global Partnerships Unit in the World Bank’s Social, Urban, Rural, and Resilience Global Practice. “Through our partnership, we aim to contribute to the betterment of the lives of the world’s one billion people with disabilities by providing access to the most basic human rights, such as employment, education, and health care."
Tiziana Oliva, International Director at Leonard Cheshire Disability, said: “Through joint research, training and capacity-building initiatives, Leonard Cheshire Disability looks forward to working with the World Bank to help service providers and governments replicate or scale up successful models of inclusive education. There will be a similar weight of focus given to inclusive employment, with joint activities planned to disseminate best practice, build capacity, and scale up successful models for inclusive waged-employment.”
Some of the areas of collaboration outlined in the MOU include:
- Promoting employment of persons with disabilities and inclusive economic growth, including inclusive waged-employment and fostering greater self-employment by persons with disabilities;
- Promoting inclusive education from the early years to higher education to better prepare persons with disabilities for the labor market; and
- Shaping the disability agenda and building stakeholder capacity through training and tools so that partners are better able to safeguard the rights and needs of persons with disabilities.
“For the World Bank, disability is a cross-cutting development issue,” said Charlotte V. McClain-Nhlapo, the World Bank’s Global Disability Advisor. “The World Bank is fully committed to advancing its work
