The first Africa Regional Conference on CBR was held at the Uganda National Institute for Special Education (UNISE), Kampala in 2001. This conference was the final output of the linkage between UNISE and the Centre for International Child Health (CICH) University College London, which was designed to facilitate and support the development of CBR training in Uganda. Four action points were identified at the Kampala conference, which later formed the initial tasks of the new organisation, CAN.

They were:

• Initiate the formation of National CBR Associations
• Improve capacity for sharing information about good CBR practices
• Review CBR training programmes in order to promote their synchronisation
• Organise regular (every three years) CBR Conferences in Africa, starting with one in 2004

Specific people were identified to carry forward each action point and the group also formed the basis of the interim committee of CAN. The team included participants from Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Zimbabwe and UK. As a member of the committee Professor Sally Hartley secured a grant from the CP Charitable Trust for four years to support the establishment and development of a CBR information network. At the first meeting in June 2002 in Kampala, Uganda, the steering committee adopted the name “CBR Africa Network” (CAN) and decided that a secretariat be based in Uganda.

CAN would have the following specific objectives

• To collect, collate and disseminate information about disability services from all African countries
• To facilitate the development of records keeping and writing skills’ culture for the purpose of documenting community initiatives and good practice
• To facilitate the capacity of CBR workers to communicate their experiences between themselves and other practitioners.     
• To make information on CBR services accessible in electronic (Internet, audio and video)  and other formats (Braille, print, pictorial)
• To organise regular forums to promote CBR as a developing field and advance the inclusion and empowerment of persons with disabilities in the community