Established in 1981, the International Year of Disabled Persons, Disabled Peoples' International (DPI) was the world's first successful cross-disability endeavour to convert the talk about full and equal participation of persons with disabilities into action. Till today, 35 years after it was formed, DPI continues to be the world's ONLY cross-disability Global Disabled Peoples' Organization (DPO).

DPI is headquartered in Ottawa, Canada and has a presence in 139 countries through its Member National Assemblies (MNAs) spanning across 7 regions: Africa, Arab, Asia-Pacific, CIS, Europe, Latin America and North America & Caribbean. The MNAs are focused on capacity building, and empowerment of people with disabilities in their countries and over half of them are based in the developing world.

DPI's goal is to achieve full participation of ALL persons with disabilities in the mainstream of life, through promotion and protection of their human rights. DPI's focus is particularly on those in developing countries who form 80 percent of the world's one billion people with disabilities and 20 percent of the world's poorest and most disadvantaged people.