Chapter 5: The role of ATscale, the Global Partnership for Assistive Technology

A woman using a wheelchair laughs with a group of women whom she passes on a street in South Asia.

Photo credit: ©UNICEF-UN050188-Pirozzi

ATscale, the Global Partnership for Assistive Technology, is a cross- sector partnership established in 2018 to build a cohesive strategy addressing the lack of global prioritisation, coordination, and investment in AT, as well as to tackle market challenges. ATscale’s vision is to enable a lifetime of potential where every person can access and afford the life-changing AT they need. ATscale’s goal is to catalyse action to ensure that 500 million more people globally are reached with life-changing AT by 2030.

ATscale works to:

Inspire and influence stakeholders to act on AT by raising political will and mobilising resources from current and new actors
Catalyse leading partners across sectors to act collaboratively within unified strategies at global, regional, and country levels
Make targeted investments across the AT space to ensure rapid scale-up of sustainable systems for AT access

ATscale has two primary strategic objectives shaping its work. The first focuses on developing an ‘enabling ecosystem’ for increasing access to AT. This includes galvanising political will, mobilising investment, driving policy reform, and strengthening targeted cross- product systems—particularly at the country level. The second objective is to identify and implement interventions to overcome supply- and demand-side market barriers to build and shape markets for assistive products and their related services.

Through an assessment of the WHO’s Top 50 Priority Assistive Product List, level of unmet need, and the potential for impact through new market-shaping approaches, ATscale selected five priority products for initial focus: wheelchairs, hearing aids, prostheses, eyeglasses, and assistive digital devices and software.

ATscale will progressively build on its successes and expand its scope of impact. Initial investments will address some of the foundational components that are lacking in the sector including global product standards and profiles and will pilot new tools for innovative service delivery approaches. ATscale will learn from its initial investments and move towards supporting larger-scale programmes that bring together both demand and supply-side interventions to strengthen AT provision in-country and to shape global markets.

A man with a prosthetic leg walks along a village road while carrying firewood on his shoulder. Photo credit: ©CDPF

ATscale was founded by China Disabled Persons’ Federation, Clinton Health Access Initiative, Global Disability Innovation Hub, Government of Kenya, International Disability Alliance, Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation, the then Office of the United Nations Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for Health in Agenda 2030, UK Department for International Development, UNICEF, United States Agency for International Development, and World Health Organization.