Disability Rights Monitoring

Disability rights monitoring is a human-rights-based method for tracking how well a state implements the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) and where it falls short. It translates the abstract rights in the Convention into measurable indicators using the structure-process-outcome framework: structural indicators capture commitments and legal frameworks, process indicators capture the efforts and programs that turn commitments into action, and outcome indicators capture the results disabled people actually experience. Evidence for these indicators is triangulated from administrative data, population surveys, and the lived experience of disabled people, and observed performance is compared against the rights standard to identify gaps. The framework draws on the WHO International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health to define functioning and participation, and on Amartya Sen's capability approach—applied to disability by Sophie Mitra—to ground what equality and the realization of rights substantively mean. The output is a gap analysis and recommendations that hold duty-bearers accountable.