International Disability Alliance

Description

International Disability Alliance is a global alliance of organizations of persons with disabilities, working to turn disability rights into systemic change. It brings together fourteen networks, made up of member organizations that together represent people with disabilities in over 180 countries. It was created in 1999 and became a legally incorporated entity in 2013. Its secretariat is based in Geneva and New York.

The alliance works with non-governmental organizations, United Nations bodies and national governments to shape laws, policies and investments so that they are made by and for persons with disabilities. It uses the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities as its guiding framework, and advocates before UN committees on issues such as the rights of women and children with disabilities. It is governed by its full member organizations through an IDA Board made up of their representatives.

Its member organizations include specialist bodies working on Down syndrome, deafness, deafblindness, hard of hearing people, spina bifida and hydrocephalus, blindness, and psychiatric survivors, alongside regional disability forums covering Africa, the Arab world, Europe, Latin America and the Pacific. Through these members it supports local projects, position papers and interventions in national and international courts and forums. Its stated goal is to help create better conditions for hundreds of millions of persons with disabilities by 2030 through advocacy led by organizations of persons with disabilities.