The wider objective of the project is on to empower, amplify voices and creating resilience among people (including men, women and youth) with disabilities (also referred to as PWDs) and other excluded groups, particularly those faced with food insecurity in areas of protracted crises. Implementation countries are Burundi BDI, DR Congo DRC, Ethiopia ETH, Sudan SDN, South Sudan SSD, Uganda UGD. By 2025, through engagement with public authorities (formal and informal powerholders), men, women and youth with disabilities and other excluded groups, through resilient and capable local CSOs/DPOs in six fragile and conflict-affected countries, are successfully influencing laws, policies, practices and norms for improved food security for all.

The specific objectives : Outcome 1 : Women, men and youth with disabilities and other marginalized groups are actively participating in local DPOs and CSOs.; Outcome 2 : Local and inclusive DPOs/CSOs are actively involved, legitimate and have more ownership in lobby and advocacy at all levels, and they are able to influence the gender-sensitive Local Inclusion Agenda and improve equal rights and access to productive resources for all. Outcome 3 : Local authorities are actively engaging with DPOs/CSOs to develop laws and practices and set norms for inclusive governance.

VNG International and The Hague Academy for Local Governance THA are jointly responsible for the implementation of Pathway 3.

The Local Inclusion Agenda (LIA) is a public authority's own policy framework and action plan aimed at disability inclusion. It covers all life domains, so that public authorities' policies and services take full account of all local residents, whether or not they have a disability. The basis of the LIA is the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UN CRPD), in which an obligation was made to design a single integrated plan about how public authorities are putting the convention into practice for the entire social domain.

We are able! takes a territorial approach in which we work with public authorities on three levels: the individual, the organizational and the institutional level. Our entry point is primarily local, but with evident involvement of other levels of government, for example line ministries and national associations of local government authorities (e.g. ULGA and UAAU in Uganda, ABELO in Burundi, ECA in Ethiopia, the Local Government Board in South Sudan, and the Chamber of Federal Affairs in Sudan). The latter two are both not associations but are central government agencies mandated to deal with local government affairs. Multilevel governance interventions are crucial in generating conducive policy frameworks and inclusive formal governance mechanisms. For the same reason, sensitisation and capacity support for public authorities will address both civil servants as well as politicians, as we often see that governance programming targets only technical staff disregarding the fact that governance is inherently political. Technical staff need the enabling environment provided by politicians to endorse their actions.

We will work on intergovernmental relations and national government levels (e.g. scaling through joint interventions with various local governments, but also L&A to influence the policy environment at national level). This is important for effective lobby & advocacy (L&A), and for ensuring the right conducive policy environment for service delivery and resource mobilization at local level.


Consortium partners are ZOA, African Disability Forum (ADF), Light for the World (LftW1), The Leprosy Mission Netherlands (TLM).
VNG International (VNGI) and The Hague Academy for Local Governance (THA) are subconstracted by ZOA through a separate agreement, but have the same rights and obligations of other consortium partners.