Ensuring Accessibility and Disability Inclusion in Sexual and Reproductive Health Services and Rights

Project Summary

ECDD will address barriers in accessing health care services and SRHR information and knowledge by enhancing the MINCH platform, a zero-cost digital platform which uses Interactive Voice Response (IVR) technology to deliver voice-based sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR)-related information to persons with disabilities in various parts of Ethiopia, rural or urban.

To ensure that the enhancements made to the MINCH platform are inclusive, ECDD will regularly engage with persons with disabilities, their parents and caregivers, organizations working with persons with disabilities, youth associations and community-based organizations at various stages of program design, project implementation, and monitoring and evaluation. Gaps in the current provision of SRHR information and knowledge will also be identified through feedback from the above-mentioned stakeholders and will be used as input for designing an appropriate technological solution.

Persons with disabilities are twice as likely to find health care provider skills and equipment inadequate to meet their needs and three times as likely to be denied care. The sexual and reproductive health (SRH) needs of those with disabilities continue to be de-prioritized in health systems. They often face barriers to care, services, education, and information about SRH, gender-based violence etc. Most governmental and non-governmental service providers have limited access to disability-specific information. Further, there is a critical gap in providing information and communication materials in an accessible format by health providers (e.g., lack of materials in Braille, large print, accessible language, and pictures; lack of sign language interpreters).