Africa Polling Institute (API) with support from Ford Foundation, has been carrying out a 2-Year grant on the Nigeria Disability Research Project.
Having completed the first phase where the Institute conducted an Action Research Study on the State of persons with disability in Nigeria and monitored the progress of the domestication of ‘The Discrimination Against Persons with Disabilities (Prohibition) Act, 2018’ in the 36 states of the federation and the FCT in 2021.
The Institute in preparation to embark on the second phase of the Project organized a One Day Symposium on Thursday 10th March, 2022 in Abuja to look into the successes of the first phase and inform stakeholders on the second phase of Action Research and Advocacy for Persons with disabilities in Nigeria.
The symposium geared towards generating a discourse on the overall Nigeria Disability Research project to
inform the second phase of the project.
Mr. Olugbenga Ogunmefun, Director of Research and Institutional Strengthening, API speaking on behalf of Professor Bell Ihua, the Executive Director of API, thanked and welcome the participants for honoring their invitation.
He gave a brief overview of the Nigeria Disability Research Project, Recalled that the project is a two-year grant awarded to Africa Polling Institute (API), with support from Ford Foundation.
He stated that in the first year, the Institute completed an Action Research Study on the State of persons with disability in Nigeria, and monitored the progress of the domestication of ‘The Discrimination Against Persons with Disabilities (Prohibition) Act, 2018’ in the 36 states of the federation and the FCT. In addition, the institute carried out a study on sexual and gender-based violence among persons with disabilities in the first year.
Following this is successfully organizing a capacity-building workshop for research staff of key disability rights organizations in Lagos and Abuja. Also, the institute in collaboration with the National Commission for Persons with Disabilities developed a PWD Diagnostic Tool for Public Institutions in Nigeria which was validated in February.
He further told everyone present that following the progress made in the first year, this symposium aims to generate discourse on the overall Nigeria Disability Research Project to inform the next phase of activities for the second year. Thus, he asked everyone to go through some of the key findings highlighted and urged them to share their ideas to make the session a robust one.
TQM reports that the participants were drawn from Organizations of Persons With Disabilities (OPDs), Some Ministries, Departments And Agencies (MDAs), Some Staff of National Commission for Persons with disabilities (NCPWDs and some professionals working on disability issues made inputs on the activities of the project on the first phase, suggested implementation strategies of the PWDs Diagnostic Tool and activities to be carried out in the second phase.
Importantly, API was advised to engage the stakeholders at States where the second phase will take place to identity working relationship and again, API was also asked to engage the already trained researchers in a research to ascertain their level of understanding to guide the Institute in the area of improvement in the second phase.
TQM reports that it was suggested that the Institute to form an Implementation forum of the PWD Diagnostic Tool to be consisted of OPDs, MDAs and API coordinated by NCPWD to track the implementation of the tool by agencies.
