What progress has the UK Department for International Development (DFID) made in mainstreaming disability? What are the challenges and opportunities ahead? This final report from the Policy Project of the DFID Disability Knowledge and Research (KaR) Programme reviews progress on addressing disability issues during the last year and identifies barriers to and opportunities for taking work forward. It finds that there are several challenges to overcome before DFID can be said to be implementing the twin-track approach to disability.
The World Bank estimates that 20 per cent of the world’s poorest people are disabled. The poverty impact of disability is large and growing, especially because disability can affect the entire family of the disabled. Disabled people are typically among the very poorest; they experience poverty more intensely and have fewer opportunities to escape poverty than non-disabled people. They are typically excluded from development activities, yet clearly the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) cannot be achieved without tackling disability. DFID cannot work effectively to reduce poverty and tackle social exclusion unless it makes specific efforts to address the needs and rights of the disabled.
Disability does have a clear home within DFID. Since 2004, DFID has introduced the Exclusion, Rights and Justice (ERJ) team, a Diversity Strategy and has improved engagement with the UK disability movement. Country offices have increased their activity on disability issues, with DFID India taking the lead. Yet there remains some internal confusion about the status of disability policy. Some key challenges remain:
- The relationship between disability issues and DFID’s corporate goals must be clarified.
- DFID’s position on disability issues should be more clearly communicated to staff and external stakeholders. Discrepancy between how policy is understood internally and externally fosters confusion about what DFID can be held accountable for.
- Technical support and standing capacity on disability issues is required.
- The shift away from project-based funding towards new aid instruments raises both challenges and opportunities for addressing disability issues. Care should be taken that Poverty Reduction Strategy Plans (PRSPs) include specific strategies and actions to address the needs of disabled people.
- DFID’s increased support to national governments should be balanced by support to civil society in order to draw on their expertise and ensure social accountability.
- DFID country offices should be encouraged to engage directly with Northern and Southern disabled people’s organisations (DPOs).
DFID has considerable opportunities to take forward its existing work on disability:
- The greatest opportunities for DFID lie at the country level. Where countries have passed disability rights legislation, DFID offices need to respond. DFID support to countries emerging from conflict should include a disability perspective.
- DFID can increase the quantity, quality and accessibility of information on disability issues. General understanding of disability issues can be improved by ensuring that the disability perspective is specifically included in national data collection and poverty analyses.
- There is considerable opportunity for DFID to engage directly with DPOs and support them to represent disabled people, particularly at the local level. This is essential where countries have passed disability rights legislation or made specific commitments towards their disabled citizens in PRSPs and other national plans.
- DFID should support DPOs to participate in discussions on PRS processes and disseminate information to disabled people about their rights and entitlements.
- DFID can ensure that the disability perspective is included as part of its technical support to governments developing social protection systems.
- There are opportunities for DFID to work more closely with international partners to achieve inclusion of the disabled, for example in HIV/AIDS and education programmes.
