Who are the Washington Group?

The Washington Group (WG) on Disability Statistics is a United Nations Statistics Commission City Group formed of representatives of National Statistical Offices (NSOs) working on developing methods to improve statistics on persons with disabilities globally. In this work, NSOs (currently over 135) are joined by various international agencies and experts including UN agencies (e.g., UNICEF, ILO, World Bank), bilateral aid agencies (e.g. DFID, DFAT, USAID), NGOs (e.g., Humanity & Inclusion, Sightsavers), Disabled People Organizations (DPOs), and researchers.

The United National Statistical Commission authorized the formation of the WG to address methodological issues that were identified at the International Seminar on Measurement of Disability in New York in June 2001. The consensus of that seminar was the recognition that statistical and methodological work was needed at an international level in order to facilitate the comparison of data on disability cross-nationally.

The WG, like all City Groups, invites representatives from all national statistical agencies to come together and participate in addressing the statistical challenges to collecting valid, reliable and cross-nationally comparable data on disability.