ICT4PWD Programme — DPO-Partnered Accessible Digital-Skilling Model

An estimated 16% of Ugandans live with a disability. The Uganda Communications Commission's Universal Service and Access Fund designed ICT4PWD as a three-year pilot with the apex disabled-persons' organisations NUDIPU (National Union of Disabled Persons of Uganda) and NUWODU (National Union of Women with Disabilities of Uganda), plus contractor Eight Tech Consults, built around a 'Community Centric Digital Skilling Approach' — accessible curricula with sign-language interpretation, screen readers, and facilitators who themselves have disabilities.
In Year 1 the programme delivered 56 two-day sessions across 28 districts spanning all five Uganda regions to 1,010 participants (55.5% male, 44.5% female; 28.4% with visual disabilities, 28.3% deaf, 8.4% hard of hearing), as reported in a peer-reviewed journal article.
The programme achieved a 96.1% completion rate (971 certifications issued); participants' 'Very Confident' self-ratings nearly tripled after training while 'Poor' ratings dropped 94%, and 99.2% said they would share their new skills with other people with disabilities. UCC separately commissioned an independent four-month impact assessment by Radix Management Consulting, covering 73 of Uganda's 135 districts, which corroborated 'notable progress'.
UCC's own published summary of that assessment states plainly that sustaining and scaling the gains will require targeted support for underserved disability groups, longer training cycles, improved connectivity, and deeper integration into government systems — a limitation disclosed by the commissioning regulator itself, not only by outside critics.

Read the full analysis: https://www.ucc.co.ug/ucc-study-highlights-strong-impact-of-ict4pwd-programme/