The National Commission for Persons with Disabilities has convened a three-day National Stakeholders Workshop aimed at designing a National Disability Management Information System (NDMIS) to improve disability data collection and management in Nigeria.
The workshop, held between May 18 and 20, 2026, at the Stratton Hotel, Asokoro, Abuja, brought together stakeholders from relevant Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs), development partners, Organisations of Persons with Disabilities (OPDs), and other actors within Nigeria’s disability community.
Speaking at the opening ceremony, the Executive Secretary of the commission, Ayuba Burki Gufwan, said the consultative workshop was organised to address persistent challenges affecting disability data management in the country.
According to him, Nigeria’s disability ecosystem remains fragmented, largely estimate-based, and poorly integrated into national administrative and statistical systems.
Gufwan identified major challenges confronting disability data management 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 limited interoperability among sectoral data systems.
“These gaps mean that millions of Nigerians with disabilities remain undercounted, underserved, and excluded from development outcomes,” he said.
He stressed the importance of reliable data in driving inclusion and effective policy implementation, noting that the workshop was convened to design and operationalise a secure and standalone National Disability Database.
According to him, the proposed NDMIS would help harmonise disability-disaggregated data across MDAs, strengthen compliance monitoring of the Discrimination Against Persons with Disabilities (Prohibition) Act, 2018, improve planning and budgeting processes, and enhance Nigeria’s reporting obligations under the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
Gufwan added that the workshop was also expected to develop a National Universal Disability Data Collection Tool compliant with the Washington Group Questions for standardised disability data collection nationwide, as well as produce a national action plan for the phased design, pilot and operationalisation of the NDMIS.
The Director of Planning, Research and Statistics at the commission, Idowu Iwere, said the workshop served as a technical co-creation platform for MDAs, NGOs and OPDs to harmonise systems, strengthen interoperability, and support evidence-based policymaking.
The event was attended by the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Equal Opportunities, Abba Isah; the Head of Social Affairs Division of ECOWAS, Alves Dalmanda; representatives of the National Bureau of Statistics, Federal Ministries of Education and Health, and other MDAs.
Representatives of Sightsavers, GIZ, and CBM International also delivered goodwill messages, pledging continued support towards ensuring accurate and disaggregated data collection for persons with disabilities in Nigeria.
Highlights of the workshop included technical paper presentations, adoption of operational models, and a group photograph.
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