Training opportunities for people with disabilities at government agencies in participating countries

The total number of agencies contacted during 2006 and 2007 by email, letter or phone was over 1500 agencies, in all countries. 930 in Germany alone, 250 in Sweden.

To compare the accessibility of trainee programs at Government institutions in different countries was not straightforward. The numbers in the table below don't tell the story. Reasons why:

1. Discrimination on the basis of disability is illegal in all EU states. Ask an official if they like red or green they will tell you the truth.
   Ask them if they are doing a poor job or breaking the law and the truth is harder to come by. The temptation is not to answer at all. Different cultures produce different answers in the same situation to the same question.
2. The questions asked of the agencies were translated/interpreted and collected by each member organization independently. One example of how this failed is that a diversity policy was counted as a policy for inclusion by Germany but not by Sweden.
3. Government organizations recruit differently in each country.
4. Time constraints.

Read the comments written when doing the questioning and the text from the final report from each country (to come) to get an idea of the relative standings of each country. Also note that the goal was to increase awareness by asking questions and to get input for the booklet produced later in the project, so even if the published results comparing countries are of little use as a comparison it was not a wasted effort.

Table of responses by government agencies