The Disability KaR programme commissioned a number of specific research projects. These have included substantive studies on poverty, disability and development and a comparative analysis of disability and gender mainstreaming.

There were also briefing notes prepared on the social model of disability and the disability policies of national and international development agencies. These form part of the 'Enabling disabled people to reduce poverty study'. (For more information see the Reducing poverty study section.)

The scope and range of research developed when the UK disability movement became more directly engaged in the programme. Supported by the Programme Advisory Group (PAG), in which disabled people were in the majority, a research agenda was formulated. This was firmly rooted in the research priorities and modalities of Southern DPOs, as expressed at the Malawi roundtable. It resulted in the production of seven short-term but ambitious research projects, all of which were characterised by collaborative working between disabled people in the North and South and the active involvement of Southern DPOs. The research included:

1. Research gaps on the topic of disability and development
2. Disability policy and legislation
3. The collection and use by disabled people of statistical data
4. Whether disabled people’s voices are being heard in the development process
5. Mainstreaming disability in development cooperation
6. Disabled people in conflict and emergency situations
7. Inclusive education in Asia and Africa

(See the Thematic Research section for more information on each of the seven projects, or click on any of the titles above.)

The Policy project completed a detailed mapping of DFID and disability issues, which together with a corresponding report, "Disability KaR: Assessing connections to DFID’s poverty agenda", resulted in mainstreaming of disability becoming a central theme of the entire programme.

The theme of mainstreaming underpinned the Officer’s three country-level research reports on disability and development in Rwanda, Cambodia and India (see the Policy Project: in-country section).

A further four in-country research projects were commissioned by the Project Policy Officer. The first three of these were carried out by disabled researchers in the South and the fourth involved disabled people in every aspect of the work. These projects looked at:

• Capacity building of disabled people’s organisations in Mozambique
• The role and effectiveness of disability legislation in South Africa
• Participation of disabled people in the PRSP/PEAP process in Uganda
• Developing participatory rural appraisal approaches with disabled people in Cambodia

The final report by the Officer, "Disability, Poverty and The Millennium Development Goals: Relevance, challenges and opportunities for DFID", brought together all the Policy project work as well as findings from other parts of the Disability KaR in a comprehensive set of recommendations on the way forward for DFID on disability (see the Policy Project: DFID section).

Use the left-hand menu to find out more about each research area and download the Executive Summaries and full reports.