The National Commission for Persons with Disabilities has commenced efforts to address Nigeria’s long-standing disability data challenges with the convening of a three-day National Stakeholders Workshop aimed at designing a National Disability Management Information System (NDMIS).
The workshop, held between May 18 and 20, 2026, at Stratton Hotel, Asokoro, Abuja, brought together stakeholders from relevant Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs), development partners, and organisations within the disability community.
Speaking at the opening ceremony, the Executive Secretary of the Commission, Ayuba Burki Gufwan, described the initiative as a critical step toward addressing gaps in disability data collection and management across the country.
According to him, Nigeria’s disability ecosystem remains fragmented, estimate-based, and poorly integrated into national administrative and statistical systems, thereby leaving millions of persons with disabilities undercounted and underserved.
Gufwan identified key challenges confronting the sector to include weak disability-disaggregated administrative data across MDAs, limited adoption of internationally recognised disability measurement tools such as the Washington Group Questions, under-registration of persons with disabilities, absence of a harmonised national disability database, and poor interoperability among sectoral data systems.
“These gaps mean that millions of Nigerians with disabilities remain undercounted, underserved, and excluded from development outcomes,” he stated.
He stressed that the workshop was convened to develop and operationalise a secure standalone National Disability Database that would harmonise disability-disaggregated data across MDAs, improve compliance monitoring of the Discrimination Against Persons with Disabilities (Prohibition) Act 2018, and strengthen planning, budgeting, and policy implementation.
The Executive Secretary added that the workshop was also expected to produce a National Universal Disability Data Collection Tool compliant with the Washington Group Questions to ensure standardised data collection nationwide, alongside a national action plan for the phased implementation of the NDMIS.
Director of Planning, Research and Statistics at the Commission, Idowu Iwere, noted that the workshop served as a technical co-creation platform for MDAs, NGOs, and Organisations of Persons with Disabilities (OPDs) to harmonise systems and support evidence-based policymaking.
The event attracted notable participants including the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Equal Opportunities, Abba Isah; the Head of Social Affairs Division at ECOWAS, Alves Dalmanda; representatives of the National Bureau of Statistics, Federal Ministries of Education and Health, among other stakeholders.
Development partners including Sightsavers, GIZ, and CBM International pledged continued support toward ensuring accurate and disaggregated disability data collection in Nigeria.
Highlights of the workshop included technical paper presentations, adoption of operational models, and group photographs.
