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Including disabled people in water and sanitation initiatives

The link between disability and poverty is clear: two thirds of the world’s disabled people live in low-income communities, with most in rural areas. Water and sanitation facilities are considered basic needs and are central to global development. Yet programmes and service providers continue to ignore the needs of disabled people.

Estimates suggest that almost every family in poor, rural communities in developing countries is affected by disability. A project at the Water, Engineering and Development Centre of Loughborough University is exploring these issues and searching for good practice globally.

The aim is to develop projects that improve well-being in low-income communities through improved provision of water and sanitation. The approach is holistic, not only meeting basic needs, but also improving the family situation by increasing disabled people’s self-reliance - so freeing up carers’ time - and by improving disabled people’s ability to participate in activities that contribute to family and community livelihoods.

Preliminary findings include:

There is a scarcity of information about disabled people’s access to water and sanitation. What does exist relates mainly to barriers to access, rather than good practice.
A comprehensive approach to addressing barriers to access should not only address individual limitations but also environmental barriers. These may be physical, institutional or relate to people’s attitudes and beliefs about disability.
Although policy and legislation is improving with regard to disabled people, a wide gap exists between policy and practice. Many practitioners still fail to consider disabled people in projects or, in trying to do so, fail to find examples of good practice to follow.
The full inclusion of disabled people at all stages of programmes significantly increases success and sustainability.
Poor, rural disabled women and girls suffer from triple discrimination and are often excluded from both disability and water and sanitation initiatives. Efforts to include them have been accused of putting the burden of work on women in communities, without remuneration.

Policymakers and practitioners have few examples of good practice to follow and the issue of disability in water and sanitation continues to be forgotten or ignored. Key issues include the need to:

focus on identifying and documenting examples of good practice that implementers can learn from
work in partnerships, not only with disabled people and the organisations working with them, but also with water and sanitation organisations, authorities and those working towards broader social goals
focus on the household, shared facilities, workloads and well-being
consider family access and needs such as personal dignity and time-saving measures, in addition to physical access to services
including the views and needs of both women and men throughout each project.

Source(s):
'Water supply and sanitation access and use by physically disabled people'. Revised inception report, WEDC, Loughborough University, by Hazel Jones and Bob Reed, 2003
'Water and Sanitation for Disabled People and Other Vulnerable Groups: Designing services to improve accessibility', WEDC, Loughborough University by Hazel Jones and Bob Reed, 2005

Funded by: Department for International Development, UK

id21 Research Highlight: 15 June 2005

Further Information:
Hazel Jones
Water, Engineering and Development Centre
Loughborough University
Leicestershire
LE11 3TU
UK

Tel: +44 (0)1509 22 8303
Fax: + 44 (0)1509 211079
Contact the contributor: h.e.jones2@lboro.ac.uk

Water, Engineering and Development Centre (WEDC), University of Loughborough, UK

DFID Disability Knowledge and Research

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