Poverty and disability: Breaking the vicious cycle through inclusion

The proportion of disabled people is high among the very poor. Yet disabled people and disability issues are largely excluded from international development organisations and research. How can development researchers and policy-makers take inclusion seriously?

Research by Action on Disability and Development (ADD) and the Chronic Poverty Research Centre (CPRC) attempts to understand the relationship between disability and poverty. This involves analysing the ways that disability issues and disabled people are included or excluded from development organisations and research. Drawing on ongoing CPRC research in Uganda, ADD experience and the limited secondary research, it is evident that most disabled people are vulnerable, excluded and deprived on several levels. Yet few organisations committed to the poor have inclusive policies or practices.

A new approach

Traditional, individualistic approaches to disability are based on medical models (prevent disabilities, rehabilitate disabled people) and charity models (pity and help disabled people). However, a person with an impairment only becomes disabled when her or his opportunities are limited by social and physical barriers (social model). For example, where eyeglasses are readily available and socially acceptable, short-sightedness is rarely disabling. Impairment, illness or injury don’t have to lead to stigmatisation, exclusion, discrimination and disability. It is at this point that cycles of disability and poverty can be broken, through taking a rights-based approach and making inclusion and equity a priority.

The figure below shows why there are high rates of poverty among disabled people, and how being poor greatly increases the chances of becoming impaired or disabled. Despite the obvious relationships between impairment, disability and poverty, relatively little statistical or qualitative research has been done:

• Mainstream development journals rarely include articles on disability issues.
• There is very limited internationally-comparable data on the rate and distribution of impairment and disability. National-level data is often unreliable and out of date, particularly in developing countries.

There are practical reasons for this: the poorer the area and social group, the more difficult it is to build an accurate picture of impairments and disability. But the lack of research on disability and poverty is both a cause and effect of the exclusion of disabled people and disability issues from development policy and practice. Similarly, the shift towards inclusion within governments, NGOs and international organisations appears to be mostly rhetorical.

To break the links between poverty and disability, an approach is needed that focuses on both mainstreaming and inclusion, and on the specific needs of disabled people. Also:

• Reliable statistics on the number of disabled people living in poverty would go a long way to motivating policy-makers to take action.
• Research is needed on the long-term financial and social costs of excluding disabled people, to set against the short-term economic costs of inclusion.
• Inclusive and participatory research can help to change the relations of power that exclude disabled people.
• Consultation with disabled people’s organisations should be a part of all poverty reduction work.

Source(s):
‘Including disabled people in poverty reduction work: "Nothing about us, without us"’, World Development, 31(3), by R. Yeo and K. Moore, 2003 Full document.
‘Outcast from social welfare: disability in rural India’, Books for Change, by S. Erb and B. Harriss-White, 2002
'Escaping poverty: Can policy reach the chronically poor?' Insights #46

id21 Research Highlight: 3 March 2003

Further Information:
Karen Moore and Rebecca Yeo
Chronic Poverty Research Centre
Institute for Development Policy and Management
University of Manchester
Crawford House
Precinct Centre
Oxford Road
Manchester M13 9GH, UK

Tel: +44 (0)161 275 0809
Fax: +44 (0)161 273 8829
Contact the contributor: karen.moore@man.ac.uk

Contact the contributor: rebecca.yeo@add.org.uk

Chronic Poverty Research Centre, IDPM, UK

Other related links:
See id21's links page on Chronic Poverty