Final Evaluation of CBR Programme on disability and rights of persons with disabilities in Mongolia

Title Protecting the rights of the persons with disabilities in Mongolia through capacity building of civil society organizations

Location Ulan Bataar, Mongolia

Duration August 2015

Local Partner Tegsh Niigem (ONG)

Funding AIFO – Associazione Italiana Amici di Raoul Follerau

Context

Disability is a condition that is not only about the individual but it involves and concerns the community as a whole. According to the national census, in 2010 in Mongolia there were 108.071 persons with disabilities (approximately 4%of the total population). In 2008, Mongolia ratified Convention on the Rights of the Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) and its Optional protocol. The CRPD Committee reviewed the initial country report of Mongolia in 2015 in Geneva with its 13th session and sent the Concluding observation on the initial report to the Government of Mongolia.

CBR approach, is considered a key asset to achieve an effective implementation of the CRPD and empower pesons wth disabilities in creating inclusive societies (CBR Guidelines, WHO, ILO, UNESCO, IDDC, 2010). In July 2011, the Community Based Rehabilitation (CBR) programme became a National Program. 

Under this framework, AIFO, with its 20 years experience on disability issues in Mongolia, implemented the project “Protecting the rights of the persons with disabilities in Mongolia through capacity building of civil society organizations”. This project had two main objectives:

  • ♦  To improve the capacity of Disabled People’s Organizations (DPOs) in implementing the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD).
  • ♦  To support the process of elaboration and preparation of the new Mongolian Disability Law in collaboration with Disability Department of the Ministry of People’s Development and Social Protection.

From qualitative point of view the project actively involved civil society to participate in all its actions, without forgetting the relationship with institutions. It means that DPOs have been empowered and they become able to interact and discuss with many of those institution (Government, CRPD Committee, Human rights commission…) whose task is to protect the rights of PwDs in Mongolia. One of the two objective of the project was to elaborate and prepare a new National Disability Law in collaboration with Disability Department of the Ministry of People’s development and social security. The concept of the Law was in line with UNCRPD and without DPOs involvement it would have been significantly different and not focus on most critical challenges of disability in Mongolia.

General Objective

The aim of the final evaluation was to fully understand the effectiveness and efficiency of the processes underlying the project, but also the project’s impact prospects and potential sustainability.

 

Our contribution

After a desk analysis of the projects documents and materials, ARCO Researchers went on a field mission in Mongolia (August 2015) where they met the main stakeholders and beneficiaries of the project. The final-term evaluation made its conclusion on the basis of semi structured individual or collective interviews (26), Focus Group Discussions FGD (4) and desk review. The evaluator involved 37 key actors (22 women and 15 men): 15 of them were PwDs and 11 of them were from the countryside. Four interviews have been done by e-mail in order to involve key actors from international NGOs.

Read more on our Inclusive Development Unit