The World Report on Disability

The World Report on Disability, a joint endeavor of the World Health Organization and the World Bank, launched in June 2011, is an astonishing achievement that will set the standard for disability studies research for evidence-informed policy for years to come. The product of collaborative and participatory work between organizations of persons with disabilities, academics and social and health professionals and policy-makers, the Report is governed by a commitment to the best available evidence and the widest scope of policy domains, types of disability and voices from low, medium and high resource countries of the world. The Report’s recommendations are both topic-focused and cross-cutting, and are supplemented with actions that operationalize the recommendations in ways that are both progressive and feasible to implement. In the end, the Report can plausibly claim, as it does, that it is providing the evidence and analysis needed to facilitate the implementation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.