What needs to change to get more funding to OPDs?
What needs to change to get more funding to OPDs?
Organisations of persons with disabilities (OPDs) are at the heart of disability-inclusive development. But too often, the funding systems designed to support this work make it harder for them to participate.
So, what needs to change?
That was the question we explored in a recent webinar, Improving Access to Funding for Organisations of Persons with Disabilities (OPDs): Collective Action for Disability-Inclusive Development Finance, held under the UK International Development-funded AT2030 Programme.
The conversation built on Global Disability Innovation Hubs (GDI Hub) research with eight OPDs across Africa, Asia and the Pacific. The research found that many OPDs are working with minimal, short-term funding, despite their important role in shaping and delivering disability-inclusive development. The barriers are not difficult to identify: complicated applications, demanding due diligence, heavy reporting requirements, pre-financing requirements and funding that often fails to account for reasonable accommodation and accessibility.
There is also a deeper issue: how funders perceive OPDs.
As Joseph Kamara put it:
“Most times, our disability also affects our organisations. They see us, they see our disability.”
The research recommends more flexible, multi-year core funding, direct funding that allows OPDs to hold grants themselves, and treating accessibility costs as essential rather than optional.
As Kamara also noted, people cannot participate if they cannot access the process.
Does the level of scrutiny match the level of risk?
For Kitanga, the answer is not to lower funding standards. It is to make them proportionate.
A small grant to a community-based organisation should not necessarily come with the same requirements as a large, complex institutional grant. CBM Global's small grants scheme is one example of what this can look like, with simpler requirements and the option for some organisations to apply orally rather than in writing.
But Anderson Kitanga also pointed to the power dynamics behind funding relationships.
“Unless we address the power dynamics in the relationship, we haven't really changed partnership.”
That matters because funding can otherwise continue to flow towards organisations that are already good at navigating donor systems, rather than those with the strongest connections to the communities they represent.
Susan Sabano, a member of the CIVICUS Board of Directors from Uganda, made a similar point from the perspective of local civil society. Without investment in organisations rooted in communities, development programmes risk being designed without a proper understanding of people's experiences.
“We risk designing programmes that are based on assumptions rather than the lived realities.”
Reem Khan, Inclusive Humanitarian Action Global Specialist at Humanity & Inclusion (HI), shared how HI approaches new partnerships by first understanding the priorities of the OPD itself. Its global Making It Work initiative also provides smaller OPDs with opportunities to access funding without taking on disproportionate administrative and reporting requirements.
Stop saying OPDs have no capacity
Sally Nduta, CEO of United Disabled Persons of Kenya (UDPK), brought the conversation back to a phrase that OPDs hear too often: “OPDs have no capacity.”
Rather than treating OPDs as organisations that need to be built up before they can be trusted with funding, she called for funders to recognise and invest in the capacity that already exists.
“Please commit to not saying that OPDs have no capacity. It's very disempowering to persons with disabilities and their organisations.”
Nduta also called for practical changes, including working with national federations to identify OPDs, supporting disability inclusion training and making sure programmes can demonstrate how they include persons with disabilities.
She shared an example from a Kenyan localisation pilot where committees intended to represent local communities were staffed by people from elsewhere, leaving local OPDs unaware that the committees even existed.
It was a reminder that localisation is not simply about where programmes are delivered. It is also about who gets to participate in decisions and access resources.
In Isiolo County, Kenya, the Northern Nomadic Disabled Persons Organization (NONDO) shared the findings with OPDs, caregivers, county officials and funders.
The response from local OPDs was immediate:
“This is our reality.”
For NONDO CEO Fatma Mohamad, that response showed the value of evidence when it reflects people's lived experiences.
“Evidence has power when people can see themselves in it.”
The conversation with funders was not always easy. But it also created a sense of solidarity among OPDs that had previously thought they were facing these challenges alone.
Turning the conversation into action
The webinar was ultimately less about identifying the problems and more about asking what can be done differently. GDI Hub has developed guidance from and for OPDs, working with partner OPDs to identify practical ways to make funding more accessible and responsive.
There is also a practical tool for connecting funders with disability-led organisations: the Global OPD Map, the largest collection of OPDs worldwide. Funders can use the map to find potential partners, while OPDs can list themselves free of charge.
- Find out more by reading the full report:
- See the OPD guidance
Watch the full webinar on YouTube.
Thank you to contributors to this discussion: -
- Fatma Mohamad, CEO, Northern Nomadic Disabled Persons Organization (NONDO).
- Joseph Alieu Kamara, Founder and Executive Director, Welfare Society for the Disabled (WESOFOD).
- Anderson Kitanga, OPD Partnership Director, CBM Global Disability Inclusion.
- Susan Sabano, Member of the CIVICUS Board of Directors.
- Sally Nduta, CEO, United Disabled Persons of Kenya