Access Nigeria Persons with Disabilities (PWDs) are greatly marginalized from participating in Nigeria's electoral process because voting polling units are not always physically accessible to those that are unable to walk or have impaired walking. With technical and financial assistance from the National Democratic Institute (NDI), Inclusive Friends Association (IFA) and its partners are conducting an evidence-based advocacy to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to implement the recommendations from their #Disability Votes Matter# report. IFA influenced the piloting of Braille ballot guides during the September 2018 governorship election in Osun state to assist voters with visual impairments to cast their ballots without assistance. This was the firsttime an Election ManagementBody in Nigeria would take such a step. IFA also influenced the introduction of PWD-specific Election Day written instructions code-named EC30PWD by INEC to assist voters with hearing impairments to cast their ballots without assistance, and others.

In this phase, IFA would continue to work with its advocacy allies to ensure that INEC sustains the use of the new Braille ballot guide, Election Day written instructions and sign language interpreters during the 2019 general elections. In the last phase of the Access NigeriaCampaign, IFA secured a commitment from INEC that they would fully deploy the Braille ballot guide for the 2019 general elections based on the lessons from the Osun pilot. IFA would hold INEC to account on this and others. We are aware that sustained pressure is needed to ensure that INEC deploys them for the 2019 general elections. In this period, IFA would also organize around recommendations from its polling unit accessibility report #Disability Votes Matter# that INEC is yet to implement. A key issue here is redesigning the layout of the polling unit to make it more accessible for PWDs. IFA would work to achieve all of these by hosting a National Conference on PWDs Participation in the 2019 Elections tosecure INEC and other stakeholders# commitments and a workable roadmap for implementation. IFA would also lead a National Day of Action by PWDs and carryout sustained advocacy visits to INEC to build power and hold the Commission to account, respectively.

Trhough its partnership with Voice, IFA will conduct voter education and Get Out the Vote (GOTV) campaigns (community and media) to encourage PWDs to vote their preferred candidates through the production and dissemination of short video series on social media. IFA will also recruit and train volunteers to assist and put pressure on PWDs to collect their Permanent Voters Cards (PVCs) ahead of the 2019 general elections. IFA will also document the level of access in the Elections from pre-election period to the post-election period through a survey with special tools like survey monkey to ascertain the level of participation by PWDs voters, availability of accessible voter education materials, voting materials and post-election engagements. This will bedocumented through our pool of volunteers and the data from this process will inform our post-election engagement with all stakeholders addressing barriers to participation in the electoral process. This report will be shared majorly online, social mediaand partners# websites. We will also share reports with partners through their emails ahead of engagements in the post-election period before drawing strategies for engagements. This will be implemented through a 6-months period. The goal of the AccessNigeria's campaign is to improve the participation of PWDs in Nigeria's electoral and political processes.