Disabled people make up approximately 10 per cent of any population and more of those living in chronic poverty. The international development targets are unlikely to be met without including disabled people. There is, however, a risk the targets could cause a focus on those easiest to bring out of poverty, not those in chronic poverty. While there has been a shift towards considering disability rights in rhetoric, in many places there has been little concrete action.
Existing research uses different definitions of disability and impairment, and definitions are complicated by cultural variations on what impairments cause marginalisation. Disabled people exert little influence on policy makers, are hard for researchers to reach and research methods can also exclude them. Existing anecdotal evidence, however, points to a disproportionate number of disabled people in all countries amongst those in extreme or chronic poverty.
Disabled people experience discrimination from birth, impeding confidence and self-esteem. Without the resources and access needed to participate, the assumption that this group is a drain on society becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
- A ‘vicious circle’ operates, whereby living in poverty also increases the likelihood of getting an impairment, due to limited access to land, healthcare, healthy food, shelter, education and safe employment.
- A strategy based on economic growth and trade will not be widely beneficial to disabled people who are largely excluded from the labour market.
- Groups working on behalf of disabled people have worked through segregation, exclusion and patronising welfare schemes (the charity model) or attempts to ‘cure’ them (the medical model).
- Many governments introduced legislation against disability discrimination in the last decade. However, most national policies focus on prevention and rehabilitation not rights-based legislation. Uganda and India both have made good advances although more work remains to be done.
- The corporate sector is increasingly important to consider. However, market-based provision is largely inappropriate for the conditions of disability.
- Disabled people have recognised the need to form organisations able to network and influence decision-makers. However those that exist are largely dominated by urban-based men with physical impairments, and women with mental health problems are often marginalised.
There is a severe lack of internationally comparable statistics, which may help to motivate policy makers to take action. However, research must not be undertaken as an alternative to tackling exclusion and poverty, and must itself challenge power relations.
Disabled people must be fully involved in future research, including setting the agenda. Traditional research involves wealthy non-disabled outsiders asking questions, in an unequal power relation.
- Disabled people and non-disabled researchers need to work together. An investment of time and financial resources is required before many disabled people can effectively conduct research.
- Areas to research include: Numbers of disabled people in chronic poverty; the long term costs of excluding disabled people; the most effective policies, laws and regulations to include them in poverty reduction.
- There is a need to highlight the ways in which disabled people are currently excluded, even by development organisations claiming to work on chronic poverty issues.
- A twin track approach should be adopted, combining specific disability research and crosscutting inclusion of disability as a theme in all poverty reduction work and research.
- All organisations need to invest in training staff in disability equality issues, and meet access requirements for disabled people to participate.
