Rosangela Berman Bieler

Rosangela Berman-Bieler is a Brazilian journalist. As a quadriplegic since adolescence, Berman-Bieler has been a disability rights advocate for more than 40 years. Rosangela has joined UNICEF in February 2011 as Senior Adviser on Children with Disabilities and completed her mandate as Global Lead on Disability in October 2022, after leading the development and the adoption of UNICEF’s Disability Inclusion Policy and Strategy (DIPAS) towards 2030.

Living in the U.S. since 1995, her previous jobs included the World Bank, IADB, UN and other international agencies. Rosangela is internationally well-known for her broad expertise on disability rights and Inclusive Development, including in Humanitarian Action. She is also the founder of the Inter-American Institute on Disability and Inclusive Development (iiDi) created to promote social-economic and political inclusion in the Latin America Region, and in Portuguese speaking countries in Africa and Asia. iiDi played a key role on the development of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD).

In Brazil, she was one of the founders of the Independent Living Movement and served as founder and director of several Civil Society Organizations of Persons with Disabilities.

Rosangela, a Brazilian/American national and holds a master’s degree from the University of Salamanca on Social Inclusion of Persons with Disabilities.