2025
2025 was a year of both growth and consolidation for CDPF against a background of changing our Governance Structure after a new Constitution was adopted by the AGM. Following a successful AGM in February we elected 2 Assistant Secretaries and set up a Board of mainly Global Officers which meets up to 8 times a year overseeing budget and projects and a larger Executive representing all Regions of the Commonwealth which now meets 4 times a year with members also attending a wider range of working parties to develop policy.
During the year we also instituted senior officers meetings with the CEO/General Secretary, who is now appointed by Board, every fortnight when necessary. The Commonwealth Disabled Youth Forum has continued to thrive and grow running a series of monthly seminars and working on developing on line learning resources. We also for the first time sent a representative to COP in Belem and ran a side meeting on the issue of Climate and disabled people at the UNCOSP. Our face to face training of young disabled in Delhi and Barbados continues to bear fruit with greater involvement and new organistions forming. Ongoing work with JONAPWD Youth Section in Nigeria is leading to a tranche of online learning resources.
Our Executive and Board continues to be a majority of Women and we have successfully steered the Empowering Disabled Girls Project in Africa over two years. A main focus through 2025 was to take forward the commitment achieved from CHOGM 2024 to develop a Disability Inclusion Action Plan with both a DPO Advisory Group and an Expert Working Group of 17 Commonwealth county representatives . On our initiative Professor Anna Lawson of Leeds University was engaged as an independent expert who helped develop 3 useful drafts. We hope this whole process will come to fruition in March and lead to a draft suitable for adoption by the CHOGM in Antigua Barbuda in first week on November 2026.