The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) undertook broad, inclusive, and accessible consultations to inform Australia's new International Disability Equity and Rights Strategy (IDEARS), comprising in-person and online discussions with around 400 stakeholders in Australia, the Indo-Pacific region and globally.

The consultation process was led by the experience and expertise of people with disabilities.  An External Reference Group (ERG), comprised of disability leaders and experts across the international disability rights movement, guided the process (see the ERG Terms of Reference). The in-person workshops in Indonesia, Laos, the Philippines, Fiji, Samoa, Kiribati, and Papua New Guinea were co-facilitated with local disability advocates, in collaboration with longstanding DFAT partners the Disability Rights Advocacy Fund and CBM Australia. The workshops enabled DFAT to engage with, and hear the priorities of, local organisations of persons with disabilities (OPDs).

A public call for submissions received more than 90 responses from a diverse range of stakeholders including OPDs, development contractors, governments, non-government organisations, academia, multilateral and regional organisations, the private sector, and individuals.

Research and analysis by the Nossal Institute for Global Health (University of Melbourne) and CBM Australia were also undertaken.

Summary of key messages received from consultations and public submissions

• Australia's long-standing global leadership, advocacy and support for disability equity and rights in development and multilateral settings is valued.
• Australia should use our international relationships to promote the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CPRD), and address discrimination and stigma
  • Recognise the complexity of implementation in Australia, and the significant variations between countries and contexts, with an ongoing need for CRPD implementation and monitoring support.
• Despite achievements, the level of need remains high. The COVID-19 pandemic both highlighted and exacerbated entrenched inequalities experienced by peoples with disabilities.
• The strategy should shift DFAT's focus from disability inclusion to an approach grounded in equity, recognising the full range of social, structural and socio-economic barriers preventing people with disabilities participating on an equal basis with others. 
• The strategy could better promote disability equity and rights in foreign policy, conflict settings, and peace and security. 
• Continue the 'twin-track' approach by supporting both targeted approaches that focus on the specific needs of people with disabilities and mainstreamed approaches that actively and equitably include people with disabilities across broader development programming. 
• Commit to strengthened leadership, increased expenditure, improved performance, and increased DFAT staff capacity to advance disability equity and rights across both targeted and mainstreamed approaches.
• Recognise people with disabilities and their representative organisations (OPDs) as both experts and partners, with a strong emphasis on co-design
  • Support their meaningful participation at all levels and through different forums and approaches, ensuring they have an 'equal voice' in decision making, outcomes are mutually beneficial, support for organisations is sustainable, long-term with flexible core funding, and people are adequately resourced and remunerated.
• Recognise and invest in a more diverse range of OPDs, particularly those representing the most marginalised impairment groups, those from diverse gender and sexual identities, and ethnic minorities. 
  • Support better representation of people with disabilities in national, regional and global forums
• Intentionally focus on underrepresented groups, noting the entrenched discrimination and challenges faced by people with multiple disabilities, people with sensory, psychosocial, and/or intellectual disabilities and others who have high support needs and/or face additional challenges in having their needs heard, understood, and met
  • Increase focus on the legal recognition of national sign languages and their development.
  • Use "preconditions for inclusion" to guide DFAT's priorities, including accessibility, non-discrimination efforts, support services, assistive technologies and devices (AT), and social protection
  • Consider strengthening procurement systems, local industry development and subsidies to increase the production, supply and maintenance of AT, and its related systems and services
  • Consider mandating universal design in the development program to improve accessibility – one of the biggest challenges for persons with disabilities globally
  • Increase focus on training and qualifications for support givers and service providers.
• Prioritise disability equity in the following sectors: education, health, livelihoods and economic empowerment, gender equality, climate change mitigation and adaptation, humanitarian action, disaster risk reduction and infrastructure
  • Increase focus on early childhood development and early intervention services, access to rehabilitation services, more employment opportunities, livelihood projects and vocational training,
  • Address the disproportionate extent to which people with disabilities are subject to, and at risk of, violence, abuse, and neglect, including violence against women and children with disabilities.
• Advocate to end segregation of people with disabilities in all settings, including health care and education, and promote and advance the deinstitutionalisation agenda.
• Continue investing in data, research and the generation of evidence and best practice guidance - a major contributor to the visibility or invisibility of people with disability in society- to support effective policy and programs.
• Undertake locally-led, transformative, human-rights based approaches through which discriminatory systems and power relations can be identified, challenged, and reduced. 
• Adopt an intersectional approach, recognising that different forms of marginalisation or sources of exclusion exacerbate one another, including gender, age, poverty, ethnicity, geographic remoteness and diverse sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression and sex characteristics 
  • Give prominence to the use of intersectional disability analysis to inform DFAT's work.