The African Disability Protocol: Promise and Challenges
The Centre for Human Rights, Faculty of Law, University of Pretoria, is convening the 13th Annual Disability Rights in Africa Conference from 4 - 5 November 2025, which will take place in a hybrid format in Johannesburg, South Africa (venue TBC) and online via Zoom. The theme for this year’s conference is “The African Disability Protocol: Promise and challenges”.
Conference Details
Date: 04 - -5 November 2025
Venue: Johannesburg, South Africa
Online register on zoom RSVP in Person Participation
The conference aims to critically engage with the substantive content of the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in Africa (African Disability Protocol) and to interrogate strategies for its successful implementation, to bring about the desired social change. The conference will explore the unique contribution of the African Disability Protocol, in light of the existence of other human rights instruments that already address the subject of disability and are widely ratified by African States. These other instruments include the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) and the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (African Charter). The annual disability conference is a flagship platform for convening dialogue among key stakeholders on disability rights and to spotlight pertinent and emerging disability rights concerns in the African region.
Participation
The conference will bring together stakeholders interested in promoting the rights of persons with disabilities in Africa, including persons with disabilities and their representative organisations, scholars, policymakers, individual researchers, and other human rights defenders. The conference will be held in hybrid format, with some participants attending in person in Johannesburg, South Africa and others virtually.
Please note that participants who wish to attend the conference in-person will be required to cover their own costs (flight, accommodation, transport, and other related costs). The Centre will only cover conferencing costs. Those who wish to attend the conference virtually are requested to complete the zoom registration form, after which the zoom link will be e-mailed directly to their e-mail addresses.
Presenters will be communicated with individually regarding logistical arrangements. Presenters joining virtually will also be communicated with individually.
- Participants wishing to attend physically/in-person (at their own cost), are requested to email Ms Thandi Mpopo (u18107207@tuks.co.za), copying Ms Sabeeha Majid (sabeeha.majid@up.ac.za) by Thursday 30 October 2025.
- Kindly confirm your virtual attendance by Friday 31 October 2025 by completing the Zoom registration form
Rationale
In January 2018, the African Union adopted the African Disability Protocol pursuant to article 66 of the African Charter, which permits the adoption of additional Protocols to complement the Charter. The adoption of the African Disability Protocol occurred nearly ten years after the coming into force of the CRPD in response to a clarion call by members of the African disability rights movement for an African disability instrument. During this period, the majority of African States had already ratified the CRPD, a global instrument that many consider the gold standard in disability rights protection, with 49 of the 55 African Union Member States having ratified it by 2019 and 53 states having signed it. Nevertheless, it was felt that the CRPD does not address matters that are unique to Africa, such as harmful practices that fuel a range of human rights violations against persons with disabilities, particularly persons with albinism. For this reason, it was argued that the ability of the CRPD to provide adequate rights protection in Africa is curtailed, making it necessary to develop an African instrument with contextualised provisions that respond to African realities. The adoption by the African Union of the African Disability Protocol was therefore, welcomed as a crucial step in creating an enabling legal framework for the adequate protection of the rights of persons with disabilities in Africa.
The subsequent coming into force of the African Disability Protocol on 3 May 2024, six years after its adoption, brought a renewed sense of hope for a more disability-inclusive Africa.
African States now face the challenge of translating the Protocol into social change that impacts persons with disabilities at an individual level. To that end, this conference brings together key stakeholders to exchange knowledge, experience and ideas for the successful implementation of the African Disability Protocol.
It is anticipated that papers presented at this Conference will be reworked by the authors and submitted for consideration for publication in the 2026 volume of the African Disability Rights Yearbook (ADRY)
The annual disability conference is a flagship platform for convening dialogue among key stakeholders on disability rights and to spotlight pertinent and emerging disability rights concerns in the African region. For more information on previous editions of the annual Conference
For more information,please contact:
Ms Thandi Mpopo
(u18107207@tuks.co.za)
copying
Ms Sabeeha Majid
(sabeeha.majid@up.ac.za)