United Nations Voluntary Fund on Disability

Review of Activities for the Biennium 1996-1997

Guidelines for Preparing and Submitting Project Proposals
Overview of activities for 1990-1996
Review of activities for the biennium 1996-1997
Review of activities for 1998-1999

Project Cycle Activities for the biennium 1996-1997

During the biennium 1996-1997, the Fund provided nearly US$600,000 in grants to 26 disability-related projects in countries and at inter-regional levels. Table 1 indicates that 85 percent of the projects were carried out at national and regional levels in Africa, Asia and the Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean or Western Asia.

As noted in table 1, grants disbursed included co-financing grants generously provided by the Arab Gulf Programme for United Nations Development Organizations (AGFUND) to support catalytic action to build capacities of young disabled persons in the Republic of Uganda and for training and institutional development among organizations of persons with disabilities in the West Africa sub-region.

Interregional projects accounted for 15 percent of the projects and received 18 percent of grants disbursed.

Table 1

United Nations Voluntary Fund on Disability
Projects supported and grants by region - 1 January 1998 to 31 August 1999

Region	Projects supported	Grants (US$)
Africa	11	172,466
Asia-Pacific	4	119,000
Latin America and Caribbean	6	160,000
Western Asia	1	25,000
Interregional	2	103,250
Total	26	999,102

In terms of regional distribution, Africa accounts for 42 percent of the projects supported and received 30 percent of grants disbursed. Latin America and the Caribbean account for 23 percent of the projects supported and 28 percent of grants disbursed, followed by the Asia and the Pacific with 15 percent of projects supported and 21 percent of grants disbursed.

Table 2 indicates that 66 percent of the projects supported and 65 percent of the grants disbursed were for training, capacity building and institutional development for disability action. By function, this includes 7 training and skill development projects, 2 institution building projects (in Uganda and in the West Africa sub-region) and 8 technical exchanges - seminars and workshops on priority disability issues, such as disability policies and legislation, leadership training and institutional development, and sports for persons with disabilities. Seven projects (27 percent) involved pilot action, which accounted for 31 percent of grants disbursed. Income generation was a principal theme in pilot actions supported during the biennium 1996-1997- training in a variety of agro-industrial activities, wheelchair production and commercial services employment; and two pilot projects involved training and disseminating new diagnostic and treatment procedures, for childhood disabilities in the Republic of Armenia and for vision impairment among children and young people in the Repoublic of the Philippines. The balance of the projects supported involved development information efforts, including production of Braille text and preparation of a Somali language version of the United Nations Standard Rules on Equalization of Opportunities for Persons with Disabilities.

Table 2

United Nations Voluntary Fund on Disability
Projects supported and grants by function - 1 January 1996 to 31 December 1997

Primary function	Projects supported	Grants (US$)
Training	9	201,622
Pilot action	7	182,064
Technical exchanges	8	176,030
Development information	2	20,600
Total	26	580,316

The majority of activities supported by the Fund were grass roots based and locally focussed: of the 26 projects supported by the Fund during the biennium 1996-1997, only three were not carried out by non-governmental organizations with the endorsement of the concerned governmental offices. These were: the seminar on the UN "Standard Rules" for member States of the intergovernmental Africa Rehabilitation Institute (Harare, Zimbabwe), the Asia-Pacific conference on national coordinating committees, carried out by the National Council for the Welfare of Disabled Persons of the Philippines, and the sub-regional seminar on wheelchair production in East Africa, organized by the Wheeled Mobility Center of San Francisco State University (California, USA).

As noted in the discussion, the activities of the Fund are guided by the priorities identified the General Assembly, with emphasis on support for catalytic and innovative action in the disability field. Moreover, the resources of the Fund are limited and represent complements and not a substitute for other forms of assistance available for disability action. This is evident from data on grant disbursements and total project budgets: during the period under review, the Fund disbursed US$580,316 during the biennium 1996-1997 while the budgets of the 26 projects supported totaled US$4,042,189. Each grant dollar from the Fund served to mobilize on average six-times as many financial resources for disability action.