SENADIS receives the main results of the work to strengthen public policies on disability in Paraguay

The documents summarising the results of the joint interventions between the Paraguayan State and Bridging the Gap project, financed by the European Union and implemented in Paraguay by the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID), were delivered to the Minister of the National Secretariat for the Human Rights of Persons with Disabilities (SENADIS), César Martínez, by the General Coordinator of Spanish Cooperation in Paraguay, Fernando Rey Yébenes, on Monday, November 2, at the SENADIS headquarters in Asunción, Paraguay.

Some of the materials delivered are the final guide for mainstreaming the disability approach in development cooperation in Paraguay, documents for systematizing the process of developing the National Action Plan for the Human Rights of Persons with Disabilities, recommendations and good practice guidelines for measuring disability in the national census, reports for simplifying administrative procedures in SENADIS, and recommendations for developing the Operational Plan for implementing the Law on Inclusive Education, among others.

These documents represent a synthesis of the results of the work carried out in the framework of Bridging the Gap to help the Paraguayan State comply with the commitments established in the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). “With all the actions carried out with Bridging The Gap II, we are translating into practice the motto proposed by SENADIS, ‘Opening the Doors to Inclusion’”, emphasized the Minister César Martínez.

For his part, the general coordinator of Spanish Cooperation in Paraguay, Fernando Rey, highlighted the efforts and collaboration of SENADIS and civil society organisations with over 27 consultants who worked on the development of these documents, and also thanked other international cooperation agencies for their support, inviting them to “continue to strengthen this process of supporting public policies to guarantee the rights of persons with disabilities”.

Main results of Bridging the Gap in Paraguay so far

Some of the results achieved with the support of the project are the institutional strengthening of SENADIS, which allowed to systematise, digitise and speed up its services and procedures, as well as the design of indicators for the implementation and monitoring of plans and policies for persons with disabilities.

The project has also worked on the generation and inclusion of data on disability in national registers and census, such as the National Population and Housing Census 2022, the Single Register of Students and other social assistance programmes. These joint efforts also enabled the design of an intervention protocol for the issue of a certificate for persons with disabilities.

The design and progressive implementation of templates for the implementation of inclusive websites in state institutions, the diagnosis of the application of the Inclusive Education Law and the design of inclusive curricula for their application at different educational levels, and the development of specific tools for the inclusion of the disability perspective in international development cooperation interventions and projects.