Behinderung und Entwicklungs­zusammen­arbeit e.V.

Call for Papers - Implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities & Inclusion of people with disabilities within the SDGs

Find the recent Call for Papers and other relevant information, when you are interested to contribute to the journal through publishing an article.

2025 Call for Papers

Theme: Implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities & Inclusion of people with disabilities within the SDGs

Around 1 billion people worldwide have some form of disability, relating to 15 % of the world’s population. Statistically, people with disabilities are more likely to have adverse socioeconomic experiences such as lower levels of employment, higher poverty rates or poorer health conditions. Barriers preventing a full social and economic inclusion of people with disabilities exist everywhere: inaccessible physical environments and transportation, non-adapted means of communication, but also discriminatory prejudice and stigma in society. Particularly, people with disabilities who live in the global south regularly experience discrimination and suffer from exclusion.

To improve the situation of people with disabilities, two global agreements were passed. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) and the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development with its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). While the CRPD specifically targets the importance of respecting, fulfilling and protecting the rights of people with disabilities, the UN 2030 agenda focusses on the overall sustainable development. Yet, seven SDG targets explicitly focus on people with disabilities and six targets additionally include persons with disabilities. Both frameworks are of high importance for including people with disabilities in strategies and policies of development cooperation. Therefore, the next three issues of the Journal “Disability and International Development” intent to consider them and their effects within the context of different geographical regions.

Particularly, people with disabilities who live in the global south encounter immense challenges. Disability and poverty often intersect, and multiple barriers prevent a needed und successful implementation of targets that were established in the CRPD and the SDGs. Persons with disabilities are often extremely marginalized while development cooperation lacks a specific consideration of their needs. Additionally, national governments that are responsible for implementing the CRPD into their domestic systems, regularly fail to successfully adjust their policies to the needs of people with disabilities. Specifically, the implementation of the CRPD is far from straightforward. Unfortunately, the effects of the CRPD and the SDGS on local contexts, particularly in the global south, are only rarely researched.

Further, despite the existence of the UN-CRPD and the SDGs, the progress towards achieving an inclusive and sustainable world has been stalled. The effects of Covid-19, intensifying conflicts, geopolitical strains and growing climate change are affecting the overall development 2030 target with only 17 % of the goals being on track, while the amount of people living in extreme poverty aversively increases. Specifically, people with disabilities who are living in the global south are overlooked in discourses on how to achieve development, thus marginalized and disproportionately affected from the backward-looking development of the SDGs.

The upcoming issues of the Journal want to shed light on the situation of people with disabilities living in the global south. It is intended to review the situation of persons with disabilities in context of the UN Agenda for Sustainable Development and its Goals for Sustainable Development (SDGs) and the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UN-CRPD) within three regions of the world. The first issue concentrates on low- and middle income countries in Asia, the second on Africa and the third on Latin America. A closer look is taken at challenges, good practices, and lessons learned regarding the inclusion of people with disabilities within those two key conventions. Hence, those issues seek to open a space for critical debates and reflections on the inclusion of disabilities and its implementation within the SDGs and the CRPD. We invite researchers and experts with a practical background to discuss and debate across and through the disability/SDG/CRPD intersection. We welcome theoretical and empirical work and invite scholars to contribute to any of the following topics (not exclusively):

• scientific studies on the situation and inclusion of persons with disabilities within the CRPD & SDGs
• critical review of including disability in the SDGs/CRPD at policy and practice levels in low- and middle income countries either in Asia, Africa or Latin America
• impacts of the SDGs/CRPD on people with disabilities in Asia, Africa or Latin America
• models, programmes, concepts, and practices that promote inclusion of persons with disabilities as a result of SDGs /CRPD
• analysing the UN CRPD or UN Agenda from a disability perspective
• data and reports on the inclusion of people with disabilities in the CRPD / SDGs
• analysis of the potential conflicts and tensions between a simultaneous consideration of the UN CRPD and SDGs (linkages between the CRPD & SDGs)
• intersectional challenges of disability, development and CRPD / SDGs
• review of individual SDG goals while taking people with disabilities into perspective
• trends, developments and challenges of the inclusion of persons with disabilities into development cooperation
• opportunities, gaps, needs and ways forward for the inclusion of persons with disabilities in states of the Global South in the future

Before you send us your suggestion, please read the “Information for Authors” first and then contact the coordinating editor via e-mail then: Judith Langensiepen (langensiepen@bezev.de)

Deadline for submission of papers: Africa: April 30^th 2025, Asia: June 30^th 2025, Latin America: August 30^th 2025