An estimated 90 million Southeast Asians with disabilities encounter daily attitudinal, communication, environmental and institutional barriers that prevent them from full participation in their communities. In December 2018, ASEAN launched the ASEAN Enabling Masterplan 2025: Mainstreaming the Rights of Persons with Disabilities to integrate the global human rights standards as outlined in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) and the UN Sustainable Development Goals into actions to enshrine disability rights into regional-level policies and goals through the ASEAN Community’s Development Blueprints. The Enabling Masterplan spans disability-inclusive participation in political and economic life, society and culture, and the environment and proposed 76 priority action points to empower all ASEAN bodies to ensure the rights of persons with disabilities are factored into their section of the ASEAN Community Blueprints.
To track the accomplishments toward supporting people with disabilities as part of the Enabling Masterplan, ASEAN member states have begun a Mid-Term Review (MTR) of the Enabling Masterplan to monitor progress from 2018 to 2021. The Mid Term Review will guide ASEAN institutions and Member States for more effective implementation during the rest of the Enabling Masterplan and provide pivotal evidence for the next draft of the ASEAN Community Blueprint. The MTR is conducted using a results-based monitoring and evaluation (M&E) framework developed under the leadership of the Senior Officials Meeting on Social Welfare and Development (SOMSWD). The M&E framework includes indicators and evaluation criteria as well as appropriate tools and methodologies for the systematic collection of data to assess the progress of implementation of policies, programs and projects that resulted from the Enabling Masterplan at the regional, national, and sectoral levels. The MTR will identify lessons from successes and recommendations for improvement in a final report, using data from self-assessments of ASEAN sectoral bodies and member states, peer learning sessions, and national level reports.
AGENDA has supported the MTR review by continuing to connect ASEAN bodies with completing the review process and ensuring that feedback from people with disabilities and participation from organizations for persons with disabilities are included in the review process. AGENDA’s support for the MTR has included conducting a stock-taking exercise to compile an inventory of ASEAN projects that are aligning with and advancing various action points of the Enabling Masterplan in collaboration with ASEAN sectoral bodies, supporting ASEAN members states in completing their self-assessments, providing monitoring and evaluation and disability rights expertise, guidance and standardized tools for ASEAN Member States and Sectoral Bodies, and holding a virtual regional briefing to kick off the Mid-Term Review. At the end of the review process, the results will be compiled into a final report which will be presented at the ASEAN Summit meeting in 2024.
Crucial to the success of the Enabling Masterplan, the MTR must be conducted with the participation of civil society organizations and organizations of people with disabilities to strengthen transparency and ensure inclusion. AGENDA’s support in developing the monitoring and evaluation process of the Enabling Masterplan, including the MTR process, has intentionally included and centered the perspectives of people with disabilities at all stages from the development of the monitoring and evaluation process to including civil society partners in peer learning sessions. This is in recognition that the participation of civil society organizations, and in particular organizations of persons with disabilities, in the monitoring and evaluation process is essential for ensuring the effective implementation of the Enabling Masterplan.
