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Success in Africa: People with disabilities share their stories

SHAKESPEARE, Tom
MUGEERE, Anthony
NYARIKI, Emily
SIMBAYA, Joseph
2019

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Background: Whereas most narratives of disability in sub-Saharan Africa stress barriers and exclusion, Africans with disabilities appear to show resilience and some appear to achieve success. In order to promote inclusion in development efforts, there is a need to challenge narratives of failure.

 

Objectives: To gather life histories of people with disabilities in three sub-Saharan African countries (Kenya, Uganda and Sierra Leone) who have achieved economic success in their lives and to analyse factors that explain how this success has been achieved.

 

Methods: Qualitative research study of economic success involving life history interviews with 105 participants with disabilities from both urban and rural settings recruited through disabled people’s organisations and non-governmental organisation partners, framework analysis of transcripts to chart success and success factors.

 

Results: Participants had faced barriers in education, employment and family life. They had largely surmounted these barriers to achieve success on an equal basis with others. They were working in private and public sectors and were self-employed farmers, shopkeepers and craftspeople.

 

Conclusion: The findings of this study suggest that, given the right support, disabled people can achieve economic success, with the implication being that investment in education or training of disabled people can be productive and should be part of overall development efforts for economic reasons, not solely to achieve social justice goals.

 

 

African Journal of Disability, Vol 8, 2019

Disability and inclusive education - A stocktake of education sector plans and GPE-funded grants

BANHAM, Louise
PAPAKOSTI, Elena
et al
March 2018

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This report was commissioned by the Global Partnership for Education’s Secretariat to take stock of how disability and inclusive education are included in education sector plans in 51 countries, including GPE-funded programs, such as education sector program implementation grants, program documents, implementation progress reports education sector analysis, if applicable, and other relevant GPE program documents.

This report documents progress and highlights the need to step up support to GPE partner countries on disability and inclusive education, to improve consideration of issues around disability and inclusion in education sector analysis and sector planning processes to better promote the achievement of GPE 2020 strategic goal 2, and to fulfill the transformative vision of Agenda 2030

Disability and vocational rehabilitation in rural settings

HARLEY, Debra
et al
2018

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A graduate student textbook offered in 39 chapters, each with different authors and subjects. Abstracts, test questions and citations are freely available on-line. Full text is charged for. The book surveys rehabilitation and vocational programs aiding persons with disabilities in remote and developing areas in the U.S. and abroad. Contributors discuss longstanding challenges to these communities, most notably economic and environmental obstacles and ongoing barriers to service delivery, as well as their resilience and strengths. Considerations are largely of the US but there is a chapter on each of Asia and Pacific region, Australasia, Canada, Mexico, India, Turkey, Colombia and the UK. 

 

Disabling bodies of/and land: Reframing disability justice in conversation with indigenous theory and activism

JAFFEE, Laura
JOHN, Kelsey
2018

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A central claim of this paper is that the destruction of Earth through practices of settler colonialism is inextricable from the disablement of Indigenous ontology, peoples, and communities. The disablement of land/body as a tactic of settler colonialism has persisted for centuries and takes multifarious forms. By highlighting Indigenous struggles to protect Mother Earth and her sacred resources, we suggest that Indigenous ontology, specifically relationships to land (Deloria, 1972), challenges Eurocentric/settler disability theory at the epistemological level by rejecting the taken-for-granted dualism between the environment and (disabled) humans within (settler) disability studies. Indigenous ontology, and Indigenous peoples’ experiences of settler colonialism, belie a clear bifurcation of humans and the environment, or bodies and space. Land appropriation, resource extraction, linguistic genocide, forced removal, erasure, and devastation by settlers invariably wreaks havoc on the land, spirit, livestock, and bodies of Indigenous peoples. Rejecting logics of elimination and imagining alternative futures- in opposition to the capitalist state’s projection of futures devoid of disability and Indigeneity- is essential for realizing national and bodily self-determination for non-Indigenous disabled and Indigenous peoples in the present and into the future.

 

Disability and the Global South, 2018, Vol.5, No. 2

Impact area overview: the right to inclusive quality education

PLAN INTERNATIONAL
July 2016

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A review by Plan International of their work in the area of inclusive education is presented. Rights associated with inclusive education, education targets in SDGs and global education intitatives and trends are outlined. Issues associated with inclusive education implementation and what needs to be done are discussed. The experience, standards, priorities and strategies and advocacy of Plan International are reported.

Dialogues on sustainable development : a disability-inclusive perspective

KEOGH Mary
2015

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“This publication, with contributions from civil society, UN agencies and EU institutions as well as disability and development organisations…highlights the many commonalities between disability-inclusive development and a range of overarching development themes. It is structured around the three basic elements of sustainable development – economic, social and environmental sustainability – and discusses a range of sub topics relevant to these areas” 

 

Note: easy-to-read version is provided as a related resource link

Making sure people with disabilities everywhere can have a better future

CHRISTOFFEL BLINDENMISSION (CBM)
2015

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“This easy-to-read version outlines countries’ development plans looking at how all people in the world can have a better life. The plans involve jobs and money, having a say, women and girls, making cities easier to live in, being clean and safe, coping when big problems happen and having access to information. A case study is also provided

Equality at the core : a call for a strong commitment to tackling inequalities through the post-2015 agenda

BEYOND 2015
November 2014

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At the Copenhagen Conference, with 170 representatives across 46 countries, the campaign discussed the vital importance of achieving equality across all levels and themes of the post-2015 framework, and through implementation and accountability mechanisms addressing all three dimensions of sustainable development (social, economic and environmental). This Beyond 2015 Copenhagen Statement contains recommendations to contribute to the forthcoming intergovernmental negotiations, and other decision-making processes relevant to the post-2015 agenda, including discussions around the UN Secretary General’s Synthesis Report

Beyond 2015 Copenhagen Conference

November 2014

Copenhagen, Denmark

The disabled beggar : a literature review

GROCE, Nora
LOEB, Marie
MURRAY, Barbara
September 2014

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Beggars with disabilities are among the poorest and most disadvantaged in society. Yet they are virtually invisible in the policy agenda of countries around the world, and are often overlooked in programme and advocacy efforts to improve opportunities for people with disabilities in general. This literature review originated as part of an exploratory study of beggars with disabilities in Ethiopia, published by the Leonard Cheshire Disability and Inclusive Development Centre in collaboration with the ILO in 2013 based on fieldwork undertaken by Professor Groce in Addis Abba. It has been updated and published separately as a contribution to debates on the social and economic inclusion of people with disabilities, on poverty reduction and social protection

Gender, Equality and Diversity Branch, Working Paper No. 1

Nonparametric estimation of a compensating variation : the cost of disability

HANCOCK, Ruth
MORCIANO, Marcello
PUDNEY, Stephen
December 2013

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This paper proposes a nonparametric matching approach to estimation of implicit costs based on the compensating variation (CV) principle. The paper aims to introduce the matching approach, compare its properties with those of the conventional indirect parametric approach, and demonstrate its application in an important policy area. The authors apply the method to estimate the additional personal costs experienced by disabled older people in Great Britain, finding that those costs are substantial, averaging in the range £48-61 a week, compared with the mean level of state disability benefit (£28) or total public support (£47) received. Estimated costs rise strongly with the severity of disability. The authors compare the nonparametric approach with the standard parametric method, finding that the latter tends to generate large overestimates unless conditions are ideal, and recommend the nonparametric approach

ISER Working Paper Series, No. 2013-26

Disability associated with exposure to traumatic events: results from a cross-sectional community survey in South Sudan

AYAZI, Touraj
LIEN, Lars
EIDE, Arne Henning
JENKINS, Rachel
ALBINO, Rita Amok
HAUFF , Edvard
May 2013

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"There is a general lack of knowledge regarding disability and especially factors that are associated with disability in low-income countries. We aimed to study the overall and gender-specific prevalence of disability, and the association between exposure to traumatic events and disability in a post-conflict setting. We conducted a cross-sectional community based study of four Greater Bahr el Ghazal States, South Sudan (n = 1200). The Harvard Trauma Questionnaire (HTQ) was applied to investigate exposure to trauma events. Disability was measured using the Washington Group Short Measurement Set on Disability, which is an activity based scale derived from the WHO’s International Classification of Disability, Functioning and Health. The estimated prevalence of disability (with severe difficulty) was 3.6% and 13.4% for disability with moderate difficulties. No gender differences were found in disability prevalence. Almost all participants reported exposure to at least one war-related traumatic event. The result of a hierarchical regression analysis showed that, for both men and women, exposure to traumatic events, older age and living in a polygamous marriage increased the likelihood of having a disability. The finding of association between traumatic experience and disability underlines the precariousness of the human rights situation for individuals with disability in low-income countries. It also has possible implications for the construction of disability services and for the provision of health services to individuals exposed to traumatic events"

 

BMC Public Health, 13:469

Statement of the committee on the rights of persons with disabilities on including the rights of persons with disabilities in the post 2015 agenda on disability and development

OFFICE OF THE UNITED NATIONS HIGH COMMISSIONER FOR HUMAN RIGHTS (UNHCHR)
May 2013

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This statement, issued by the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, supports the inclusion of the rights of persons with disabilities in the post-2015 agenda on disability and development. The statement calls upon the international community to recognize that development goals in the post-2015 agenda, in order to be sustainable, should be rooted in a human rights-based approach and take into account the enjoyment by all persons with disabilities of their civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights

The economic and social benefits and the barriers of providing people with disabilities accessible clean water and sanitation

WOLBRING, Gregor
NOGA, Jacqueline
November 2012

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Resolution A/HRC/RES/16/2 adopted by the UN Human Rights Council on 8 April 2011 declared access to safe drinking water and sanitation a human right. However many people around the globe including people with disabilities do not have access to safe drinking water, hygiene or sanitation facilities. Inaccessibility of clean water sources, hygiene and sanitation facilities negatively impacts among others health, education, the ability to work, and the ability to partake in social activities. This paper looks at the benefits of, and access barriers to, clean water and sanitation for people with disabilities.

 

Sustainability, Vol 4, No 11

Inclusive microfinance : reaching disabled people through partnership development

LEYMAT, Anne
March 2012

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"This study examines projects that support access to financial services for disabled people, highlighting good practices that guarantee efficiency and sustainability of initiatives with a particular focus on the use of microcredit. The study is based on the findings of: a global survey and interviews with disabled people's organizations and microfinance providers; a literature review; field studies in seven countries; and the outcome of two regional workshops (in Kenya and Bangladesh) and a practitioner workshop in Geneva. It is estimated that 10 to 12 per cent of the world's population has some kind of impairment and of those around 82 per cent live below the poverty line. Most people with impairments who work are self-employed. However, access to financial services for disabled people remains sporadic. The central part of the study explores the potential for successful, responsible, and complementary partnership development between microfinance actors and disabled people's organizations. Our findings demonstrate that if disabled people are given the opportunity to access financial services, many are capable of successfully managing loans and businesses - thereby becoming agents of their own development"
Enterprise Development and Microfinance Vol. 23 No. 1

FAO working in support of persons with disabilities

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)
Ed
August 2006

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The aim of this paper is to highlight some of the key linkages between poverty, disability, nutrition and agricultural production. The paper also reports on some of the FAO's work on disability and disability rights and highlights 5 FAO projects / pilot models - ranging from mushroom production to blacksmithing - that target rural people living with disabilities. It would be useful for anyone with an interest in mainstreaming disability in development policy and practice

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