Regional Workshop on Comprehensive National Plan of Action on Disability - Towards the Mid-point Review of the Biwako Millennium Framework for Action towards an Inclusive, Barrier-free and Rights-based Society for Persons with Disabilities in Asia and the Pacific (BMF)
Bangkok, Thailand, 19-21 October 2005

GENERAL
ENGLISH ONLY
UNITED NATIONS ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COMMISSION FOR ASIA AND THE PACIFIC

Regional Workshop on Comprehensive National Plan of Action on Disability –
Towards the Mid-point Review of the Biwako Millennium Framework for Action
Towards an Inclusive, Barrier-free and Rights-based Society for Persons with
Disabilities in Asia and the Pacific (BMF)
19-21 October 2005
Bangkok

THE STRATEGIC APPROACHES TO DISABILITY INCLUSIVE DEVELOPMENT*

- Taking one more step from the BIWAKO -

WORKING DOCUMENT 3

PART I

1. Introduction

There is nothing new about development since it has been a way of life for the majority people of the developing world. It penetrated into the lives of these people with many promises, although the outcome still remains dismal as attested by the renewed resolve of major supura-national development agencies to eradicate the global poverty. Perhaps what is new is the fact that the term disability inclusive development (DID) has become so fashionable in recent years that it is placed on the agenda both for economic development in general and DID in particular. Such developments reflect the acknowledgement that past 50 years of development efforts have failed in so far as people with disabilities are concerned. Nevertheless, the likelihood is that we will be constantly reminded of the fact that “disability is both a cause and a consequence of poverty”. Elwan(1999) suggests that roughly 15-20 per cent of poor people in developing countries have a disability[1]. Any survey on disability on any country will show lower rates of education, much higher rates of illiteracy, and much lower rates of economic activity among the population. Simply, many are so excluded and alienated from the their own society that they are no longer treated as respected “citizens” of the society[2]. The frightening prospect is that the same stories will be repeated in the next 10 or even twenty years to come! And hence the task is to ensure that this would not occur.

Table 1. Distribution of Disability Population

Source: UN Population Division, World Population Prospects: 2004 Revision

Table 1 simply shows that Asia-Pacific region carries the maximum burden in so far as the actual number of people with disabilities are concerned. To ensure that this region embark upon a course of action for development that would “make the difference” to the situation of the disability population, this paper aims to develop and present a framework for DID for implementation. It will incorporate a number of sub-set activities as follows:

1. A critical overview of past developmental efforts that had failed to include people with disabilities. This is an analysis of descriptive nature to document and understand the approaches of the past.
2. Identification of critical strategies based upon guiding principles as articulated by the Biwako Millennium Framework. A set of indicators will be presented for use as guidelines for monitoring and feedback.

2. DID in the Context of Conflicting Development Models

As the Table 2 below shows, there has always been concern for economic development, and a number of global strategies have been adopted over the decades. The strategies and approaches to development have always been dominated by economic perspective and the general population was the mainstream target for the major development policies, and the disability dimension of development has been invariably grossly overlooked as insignificant element of development. Indeed the focus upon the ‘human’ dimension of development began to appear at the latter stage and ‘disability’ still failed to draw any attention even at that stage.

Table 2. Disability Agenda and Economic development Models

Agenda for Disability Development			Agenda for Economic Developments
1	1971, Declaration on the Rights of Mentally Retarded Persons (UN)		1	1960~70 The First decade od UN Development
			2	1970~80 The Second Decade of UN Development
2	1975 Declarations on the Rights of Disabled Persons (UN)		3	1980s Era of Social Development
			4	New International Economic Order
3	1981 International year of Disabled Persons (UN)		5	Development with Human Face From Redistribution after Growth to Redistribution with Growth Meeting Human Needs
4	1982 World Programme of Action Concerning Disabled persons (UN)
5	1983-1992, Decade of Disabled Persons (UN)		6	1985 Copenhagen Social Summit
6	3 December, 1992 International Day of Disabled Persons		7	The Lost Decade of Development
7	1993, UN Standard Rules on the equalization of Opportunities for Persons with Disabilities		8	1990s Sustainable Economic & Social Development
			9	The Decade of Broken Promises
8	2002~UN Convention on Disability Rights		10	2000. MDGs
9	BMF/Osaka Declaration		11	2002 Development Summit

The one poignant point about the foregoing table 2 is that the articulation of issues on disability on the one hand, and the systematic implementation of socio-economic development policies on the other hand had been pursued without necessarily establishing linkages between the two global developments. It is interesting to note that UN had actually had re-examined and came up with redefinition of development, reflecting its dissatisfaction with the past performance and reaffirmed its commitment to development stating that ‘the coming century should be the development century’. No reference has been made in this endeavor to link disability with development.[3] As the Table 2 shows, whether one examines the Agenda for Disability Development or Agenda for Economic Developments, one notes that there has been a great deal of efforts for development, although they have been invariably characterized by centralized, authoritarian, expert driven and trickledown development. Furthermore, in so far as the Agenda for Economic Development was concerned, it appears that they had very little relevance to people with disabilities since they have been development in the interests of the people without disabilities and in particular for the wealthy, powerful upper classes of the Third World, the transnational corporations and the wealthy nations. Conventional development theory has always been almost entirely about indiscriminate economic development. The following figure-1 may also explain the experience of people with disabilities with respect to development.

Figure 1. Arnstein's Ladder of Participation[4]

d

Arnstein's Ladder of Participation clearly shows the reality of participation for persons with disabilities in society who daily experience maginalization, scapegoat, stigma, prejudice and discriminations. The concept of participation is meaningless if those who should participate are not given sufficient power and autonomy in the process of decision-making that has an important influence on their lives. To sum up, effective participation does not arise spontaneously and in so far as persons with disabilities are removed from real participation, DID may not occur.

The implementation of BMF and the DID in particular should at least ensure the participation of people with disabilities at the levels of partnership, delegation of power and the controlling of development processes. For this reason we acknowledge the significance of the adoption of the BIWAKO[5] declaration in 2003 it, perhaps for the first time, dealt with the strategic approaches to DID by articulating the principle of “inclusive, barrier free and rights based society” for people with disabilities. The challenge, of course, is to implement the BIWAKO declaration and one of the objectives of this workshop is to develop and discuss operational framework to implement the BIWAKO framework.

3. Strategic Approaches to Disability Inclusive Development: A Framework for Action

We cannot simply talk about disability inclusive development without radically redefining the conceptions of development. It is not desirable to go along with the existing conceptions of development not only because it has perpetuated poverty and disparities between the rich and poor, but because it does not take into account the specific developmental needs of the people with disability.’ It is expected that the proposed Framework for DID will incorporate a number of change-driven strategies as stipulated under 2).

The second part of the task is very important since it will have to explore a number of factors conducive to DID and utilize them as interactive catalysts, processes, networks of organizations and people with and without disabilities. Recent developments such as the World Bank’s initiatives in disability issues, UN Convention on Disability Rights and the growing evidence of collaboration between DPOs and civil society are encouraging and efforts should be added on to these developments for a systematic application of the BMF framework for DID.

A Framework for DID

Disability inclusive development should be all about ‘development of the people with disabilities, for people with disabilities and by the people with disabilities.

The Framework for DID stresses processes, which are built around values dimension, socio-political and technological prerequisites, underpinned by the operating principles as outlined above. The framework is designed to match values and actions, values tempered by economic, social and political situations of the people with disability. The Framework requires an understanding of the four sets of dimensions:

1. Definition of Disability Issues
2. Guiding Values for DID
3. DID Strategies
4. System Constraints

A. Definition of Disability Issues

The first requirement for the Framework states that definition matters most in that without recognition of the needs of the people with disabilities with respect to inclusion for development DID will not make any difference for them. A combination of number of factors such as socio-political, demographic, economic, and regional/cultural will determine the nature of disability issues and the need for disability relevant development in a given country. A good policy making will begin with a clear definition of the issues to be tackled. Nevertheless, conceptualization of disability issues alone will not guarantee that the DID will be implemented since it needs supports, both in terms of political and resources commitments.

d

B. Guiding Values and Priorities

Implementation of DID involves some changes from the dominant approaches to development as outlined in Table 2, and accordingly the articulation of change- driven and disability relevant values. In a nutshell, they have been emphatically spelt out by the BIWAKO Declaration as “Inclusive, Barrier free and Rights based society” and they are incorporated into the DID framework. Yet those values may have to compete or even be confronted by the dominant values as ‘system constraints’ and this requires specific strategies to minimize the negative impact of those constraints. The guiding values serve to illustrate the point about how the DID might be linked to specific strategies.

An example of this is “Rights-based’ rather than traditional need or welfare-based.

Enough has already been stated with regard to this principle, albeit in broad ‘mainstream’ terms[6]. It is important to readdress, for example, how the human rights has failed in the past in guaranteeing the sharing of the benefits of ‘economic’ development and guaranteeing an adequate standard of living, including access to food, water and housing, basic health care and education and so forth. Indeed, “human rights framework will remain hollow if not accompanied by improvements in the economic well-being of disabled people”[7]

C. DID Strategies

DID Strategies incorporates a sub-set three elements in the way of prerequisites and may also serve as check-lists for the each area of DID. It should be noted, as with the BIWAKO Millennium framework for Action, not all states would interprets the priorities in the same way and hence the points contained in the respective tables are purely for purposes of illustration.

C-1 Political Prerequisites

It is assumed that policy making is not an automatic smooth sailing!. As a way of foot-note, co-operative is appropriate when there is a fair degree of agreement of the general nature on the objectives for DID. This approach can be used for purposes of rational planning, action research, consensus decision-making, community development and basic fact-finding studies. A campaign strategy is appropriate when there is no consensus on the mutually agreed objectives, but they could be worked out through persuasion of some kind. Methods of advocacy research, educational and propaganda campaigns, consciousness-raising, rational persuasion, and emotional appeals, etc may be used. A contest strategy may be used in situations of a basic disagreement about the objectives of the DID. The strategies appropriate are organizing opposition groups, appeals to the third parties, disruption, violence/non-violence.

C-2 Technological Prerequisites

C-3 Prerequisite for Resources

Perhaps with regard to resource requirements for implementing DID, it should be mentioned that ‘money’ does not necessarily solve all the problems to the extent that deployment of human and community resources and maximum grass-root participation of may count more than financial resources.

Networking with political, social, cultural resources both within and outside the country, in particular ODA and other development agencies is critical. Like major developmental policies of the past, efforts and programs of foreign aid agencies bypassed the developmental needs of people with disabilities in the past. A more political and systematic strategies should be applied to attract foreign aids resources such as ODA for the DID. Revert the jargon “Aids without strings” to “Aids with strings attached to disability!” [1] It is of interest to note that one of the major global aid agency USAID is taking a number of actions to include disabled people more fully in the design, implementation and evaluation of its development efforts. Also, the Department for International Development of the UK government (DFID) has adopted a twin track approach to disability, seeking to mainstream disability issues alongside specific initiatives to empower and enhance the lives of disabled people[1]. These are only a few of emerging examples.

D. System Constraints

A well-designed plan should be able to predict some operating constraints and they may invariably involve value conflicts, cultural/ideological, political-structural and operational constraints. To a large extent system constrains deal with inter-and intra-institutional power and authority. The fundamental issue here is who determines and controls development process and strategies to deal with the constraints.

D-1 System Constrains

First, Cultural-ideological constraints reflect basic social and political values and also reflect the degree of change the system is prepared to bear. Persistent discriminatory attitudes towards people with disability may illustrate this point. Second, political-structural constraints refer to the issues of inter-and intra-institutional power and authority. In the case of the Republic of Korea disability issues are covered by many other Government Departments, which can cause the real problem of “buck-passing” and in this sense ‘contra difference’ can be a real system constraints which must be tackled in the process of implementing DID. Operational constrains refer to the critical importance of interplay of politics and skills-the extent to which relevant authorities either support or pay lip service to the objectives of the DID, the extent to which technocrats and public servants have the commitments, skills and resources to undertake the DID, the extent to which the authorities are open to the suggestion and pressure from disability groups.

It is appropriate to point out that the proposed framework incorporates a built-in feedback/monitoring cycle to assess the extent to which the objectives of the DID are achieved. The consideration and understanding of the constraints are important both at the stage of planning for DID as well as in the stage of monitoring the DID. It may be necessary to vary the applications of different strategies as the situations demand or be prepared to negotiate, compromise or rework the priorities to match the resources available, including political supports.

PART II

This section is presents the intended objectives and some of the outcomes as examples of implementation in the Republic of Korea. Two points should be made clear from the outset; The first is the fact that intended objectives were spelt out in the relevant social legislations, and the second point is that not all intended objectives have been achieved. The following is the major legislates relating to disability issues:

1. Disabled Persons Welfare Act, 1981, 1990, 1999.
2. Promotion of Employment and Vocational Rehabilitation of Disabled Persons Act, 1999.
3. Special Education Promotion Act, 1977, 1994.
4. Installation of Convenience Facilities for the Disabled Act, 1997.
5. The Act to Narrow the Digital Divide, 2001, 2002 .

A mention should also be made of establishment of Disability Discrimination Committee (DDC) as one of the Presidential Committee whereby people with disabilities who feel they have been discriminated against on the basis of disability can lodge a complaint and obtain redress if their complaint is found to be valid. This is to replace the Disability Welfare Co-ordination Committee under the Disability Welfare Law.

Korean National Five-Year Plan of Action on Disability (2003-2007) attest to the resolve of Government of the Republic of Korea to bring about some changes in the life of people with disabilities by ensuring the implementation of the legislations enacted. As a result of adopting the Five-Year Action Plan, Government of the Republic of Korea increased the budget by 14.6 per cent and broadened the disability categories in 2004. This in turn increased the number of target population from 1, 449,5000 in 2001 to 1,568,3000 in 2004-an increase of 8.19 per cent.

The following six tables present examples of government interventions either via legislative developments, or by administrative changes, different measures adopted will be presented under the broad headings of Objectives, implementation and Checks.

Table II-1 Expansion of Disability Categories & Minimum Living Standard Protection

In the past, services for persons with disabilities tended to be dominated by center-based-services and efforts have been made to shift the orientation to the community based programs. This effort was aided by the development of CBR manuals, in-service training of appropriate workers and strengthened the operation of community health centers.

Table II-2. Institutional & Community Based Services

A number of measures listed in Table II-3 affirm the changes that have been brought about by the introduction of the Five-Year Action plans on Disability. It should be noted that prior to the Plan, hardly any tangible policies have been adopted for women with disabilities. Counseling centers for sexual and domestic violence and the establishment of women’s’ health clinics and centers are the prime examples. A number of educational programs both aimed at the general public and women with disabilities have also been implemented.

Table II-3. Women with Disabilities

A massive national campaign style approach was adopted in a move to increase the employment rate by 10 per cent. Nevertheless, this areas remains as a formidable policy challenge since the majority of workers with disabilities still receive half of the average worker’s income. With the phasing out of manufacturing based ‘industrial’ job opportunities, disability employment area has a lot to catch up with the IT era in training and matching the emerging job opportunities.

Table II-3 Disability Employment