Materials : Basic Documents : Rough HTML version of a PDF file :

DISABILITY ISSUES, TRENDS AND RECOMMENDATIONS FOR THE WORLD BANK (FULL TEXT AND ANNEXES)

ROBERT L. METTS, PH.D.

FEBRUARY, 2000

The findings, interpretations and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the author and should not be attributed in any manner to the World Bank, to its affiliated organizations, to members of its Board of Executive Directors, or to the countries they represent. Please send any comments to Robert L. Metts (metts@scs.unr.edu).

ABSTRACT

This paper is intended to provide the World Bank with the information and insights necessary for policy formulation and strategic planning in the area of disability. After describing the two major contemporary disability definitions and comparing their suitability for disability policy and planning, the paper presents a descriptive analysis of the evolution and current status of disability policy and practice. Based on this information, a political and economic case is made in favor of investing public and private resources, including World Bank resources, in policies and strategies designed to increase access for people with disabilities to social and economic opportunities. The essential elements of such policies and strategies are then described and incorporated into a strategic framework for possible use by the World Bank in its ongoing effort to develop appropriate and cost-effective approaches to disability.

ABSTRACT .............................................................................................................................. ii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ..........................................................................................................v

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ....................................................................................................... viii

I. DISABILITY DEFINITIONS AND STATISTICS ...................................................................1

1.1 THE ASCENDANCY OF THE ICIDH AND ICIDH-2........................................................1

1.2 THE CURRENT STATUS OF DISABILITY STATISTICS........................................................4

1.2.1 Population Size Estimates............................................................................4

1.2.2 Estimates of GDP Lost Due to Disability ....................................................5

1.2.3 Geographic Distribution..............................................................................6

1.2.4 Disability and Age ......................................................................................7

1.2.5 Disability and Employment.........................................................................7

II. THE EVOLUTION OF DISABILITY POLICY........................................................................9

2.1 CUSTODIAL CARE AND SPECIAL EDUCATION ................................................................9

2.2 EARLY EMPLOYMENT STRATEGIES.............................................................................10

2.2.1 Quota and Quota Levy Systems...................................................................10

2.2.2 Vocational Training and Rehabilitation Strategies ....................................11

2.2.3 Protected Employment and State Authorized Disabled-Run Enterprises ..12

2.3 ACCESSIBILITY POLICY...............................................................................................13

III. DISABILITY POLICY TODAY...........................................................................................15

3.1 UNITED NATIONS DISABILITY POLICY.........................................................................15

3.2 EUROPEAN UNION DISABILITY POLICY.......................................................................18

3.3 NATIONAL DISABILITY POLICIES ................................................................................20

IV. CURRENT DISABILITY TRENDS AND ISSUES..............................................................24

4.1 EMPLOYMENT ............................................................................................................26

4.2 EDUCATION................................................................................................................28

4.3 ARCHITECTURE AND DESIGN ......................................................................................30

4.3.1 Universal Design ........................................................................................30

4.3.2 South African Case Studies ........................................................................32

V. POLICY IMPLICATIONS FOR THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY...........................36

5.1 THE ROLE OF LARGE INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS..............................................37

5.2 THE ROLE OF THE WORLD BANK...............................................................................40

5.2.1 Changing Operational Practices..................................................................41

5.2.2 Lending Initiatives .....................................................................................42

5.2.3 Non-Lending Activities .............................................................................43

iii

ANNEXES

A THE DISABILITY ADJUSTED LIFE YEAR..................................................................45

B ICIDH-2 BETA DRAFT, TWO LEVEL CLASSIFICATION..........................................48

C NATIONAL AND GLOBAL DISABLED POPULATION ESTIMATES........................61

D ESTIMATES OF GDP LOST DUE TO DISABILITY.....................................................71

E HUMAN ABILITY DEFICITS........................................................................................79

F THE STANDARD RULES ON THE EQUALIZATION OF OPPORTUNITES

FOR PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES ..........................................................................81

G EUROPEAN UNION 1996 RESOLUTION.....................................................................83

H PRINCIPLES OF UNIVERSAL DESIGN .......................................................................86

I EXCERPTS FROM THE AUDIT OF THE CONSTRUCTION

DOCUMENTATION FOR THE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE CENTER, DURBAN, SOUTH AFRICA.........................................................................88

BIBLIOGRAPHY........................................................................................................................91

TABLES

IN TEXT 1.1.......Estimated Ranges of Populations of People with Disabilities...........................................5

1.2.......Total Annual Value of GDP Lost Due to Disability...........................................................6

IN ANNEXES

A.1 Disability Classes and Severity Weightings for the 22 Indicator Conditions.................. 45

C.1 Estimated Range of Global Population of People with Disabilities ...............................64

C.2 Disabled Population Estimates for High Human Development Countries........................65

C.3 Disabled Population Estimates for Medium Human Development Countries ..................67

C.4 Disabled Population Estimates for Low Human Development Countries........................70

D.1 Total Annual Value of GDP Lost Due to Disability.........................................................74

D.2 Annual Value of GDP Lost Due to Disability for High Income Countries .......................75

D.3 Annual Value of GDP Lost Due to Disability for Medium Income Countries..................76

D.4 Annual Value of GDP Lost Due to Disability for Low Income Countries........................79

FIGURES

IN TEXT 1.1 The Disablement Phenomena as Conceptualized in the Original ICIDH ...........................2

1.2 Current Understanding of Interactions within ICIDH-2 Dimensions ..................................3

IN ANNEXES

C.1 Percentage Disabled by Country or Area, Year of Data Collection and Type of Screen..........................................................................................................63

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Nansea Metts, Phillip Thompson and Supriya Baily assisted with research and preparation of the paper. Many other people, within and outside of the World Bank, also supported and participated in the project. World Bank encouragement and support were initially provided by Jan Piercy, Executive Director, United States; Hans-Martin Boehmer, Program Coordinator, Europe and Central Asia; Nat Colletta, Manager, Post Conflict Reconstruction Unit; and Nick Burnett, Sector Manager, Human Development, Africa Region. Critical commitments of Bank resources, time and energy were then made by David de Ferranti, Vice President, Latin America and the Caribbean Regional Office and Steen Jorgensen, Sector Manager, Social Protection Team, Human Development Network.

In addition to David de Ferranti and Steen Jorgensen, who’s enlightened contributions were absolutely vital to the project, the author is grateful to the following Bank Staff who also assisted in the research and commented on drafts:

Zafiris Tzannatos, Sector Manager, Middle East and North Africa Region, Human Development Department.

Diana Walker, Assistant to the Vice President, Human Development Network. Dinah McLeod, Operations Officer, Social Protection Team, Human Development Network. Robert Holzmann, Director and Chair, Sector Board, Social Protection Team, Human Development Network.

Louise Fox, Lead Specialist, Pensions, Social Protection Team, Human Development Network.

The author is also indebted to the following individuals outside of the Bank for providing information, data, insights and experiences which have contributed greatly to the project:

Paul Ackerman, Ph.D., Director, International and Interagency Activities, National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research, U.S. Department of Education.

Janet Allem, Deputy Director, Administrative Services, U.S.A.I.D. Mary Lou Breslin, Program Director, Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund and Adjunct Faculty, University of San Francisco Executive Master of Management and Disability Services Program.

Scott Brown, Associate Division Director, Special Education Programs Early Childhood Team, United States Department of Education.

Mary Chamie, Chief, Statistical Classifications, Economic Statistics Branch, United Nations Statistics Division.

Ambassador Herman J. Cohen, Senior Advisor, Global Coalition for Africa. Deidre Davis, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, Office of Equal Employment Opportunity and Civil Rights, Department of State.

Walter Eigner, President, Inclusion International, 1994-1998. Dennis Fantin, Ph.D., Research Biophysicist, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

Nora Groce, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, International Health Division, School of Public Health, Yale University.

Gulbadan Habibi, Project Officer, Child Protection Section, United Nations Children’s Fund. Mazher Hameed, Strategic Affairs Analyst.

Judith E. Heumann, Assistant Secretary, U.S. Department of Education, Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services.

Akiko Ito, Social Affairs Officer, Department for Policy Coordination and Sustainable Development, Division for Social Policy and Development, United Nations. Lawrence Kaplan, M.D., Associate Professor, Department of Pediatrics, Yale University; Associate Professor, Department of Pediatrics, University of Connecticut School of Medicine; Director, Disabled Child Care Service, Department of Pediatrics, Yale University; and Medical Director, Center for Children with Special Health Care Needs, Yale University. Marc Krizack, J.D., Managing Director, Disability Policy and Planning Institute.

Cindy Lewis, Project Consultant, Mobility International, USA. The late Ron Mace, President, Barrier Free Environments and Program Director, Center for Universal Design.

Kathy Martinez, Director, International Division, World Institute on Disability. Margaret Mbogoni, Statistician, Statistics Division, United Nations.

Barbara Murray, Vocational Rehabilitation Specialist, Asia and Pacific Region, International Labor Organization.

Elaine Ostroff, Ed. M., Founding Director, Adaptive Environments Center. Susan Parker, Senior Advisor on Vocational Rehabilitation, Disability Sub-Programme, International Labor Office.

Clinton Rapley, Senior Social Affairs Officer, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Division for Social Policy and Development, United Nations.

Marcia Rioux, President, Roeher Institute. Bob Ransom, Deputy Director of International Labor Organization Office and East Africa Multidisciplinary Advisory Team, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

Tina Singleton, International Development and Disability Program Manager, Mobility International, USA.

Edward Steinfeld, Arch.D., Director, Inclusive Design and Environmental Access Center, State University of New York at Buffalo.

Joann Vanek, Chief, Social and Housing Statistic Section, Statistics Division, United Nations. Joy Weeber, Disability Counselor Educator.

Lucy Wong-Hernandez, Executive Director, Disabled People’s International.

The author would also like to thank the faculty and students in Cohort 5 of the Executive Masters of Management and Disability Services Program at University of San Francisco’s McLaren School of Business for their generous critiquing of the paper’s modeling of disability.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Chapter I: Disability Definitions and Statistics

“Disability Definitions and Statistics” begins with a comparison of the competing disability definitions, and an endorsement of the framework embodied in the International Classification of Impairments, Disabilities and Handicaps (ICIDH) and International Classification of Impairments, Activities and Participation (ICIDH-2). The global status of disability statistics is then described and analyzed, followed by a presentation of two statistical estimations prepared by the author at the request of the Bank.

For disability policy, planning and research, the ICIDH and ICIDH-2 are superior to their primary competitor, the Disability Adjusted Life Year (DALY), because, unlike the DALY, they embody a recognition of the fact that disablement is comprised of personal, social and environmental elements. They are, therefore, compatible with the fact that the degree of disablement associated with any given impairment is a complex function of; 1) the impact of the impairment on a person’s functional capabilities and; 2) the combined impacts of many other social and environmental factors on the person’s ability to gain access to family, community and society.

The United Nations Disability Statistics Data Base (DISTAT) is the most comprehensive collection of existing disability statistics. The data contained therein, however, are scarce, random and inadequate for systematic analyses of disability issues. Published estimates of national, regional and global disabled populations, therefore, are little more than speculation. Employment statistics for people with disabilities are virtually non-existent in developing countries and unreliable in developed countries. Though inadequate, the meager existing statistical evidence suggests that unemployment rates for disabled people tend to be high in high income countries and even higher in low and medium income countries. The author has estimated the global disabled population to be between 235 million and 549 million, and the GDP lost as a result of disability to be between $1.3 trillion and $1.9 trillion.

Chapter II: The Evolution of Disability Policy

“The Evolution of Disability Policy” presents a brief overview of the early history and evolution of disability policy and practice, highlighting special education, accessibility standards and employment strategies.

In early Medicine, disabilities were narrowly defined as impairments or disturbances at the level of the body; medical problems to be either prevented or corrected. Early scientific inquiries into disability tended, therefore, to consist of compartmentalized research into the disabling outcomes of specific medical conditions. This scientific compartmentalization of disability contributed to segregated institutional responses to disability which led to the formation of separate advocacy and self-help organizations for each type of disability. Two enduring trends were thus established which have exerted a powerful influence over the circumstances of disabled people for nearly two centuries; one towards approaching disability from a medical perspective, and the other towards the institutional compartmentalization of people with disabilities according to disability type.

vii

The Eighteenth Century discovery that people with disabilities could learn precipitated the emergence of special schools and custodial care institutions for the visually and hearing impaired. Such institutions did not emerge until much later for people with physical disabilities, and most of them were affiliated with hospitals. This divergence in institutional responses to the different disability communities resulted in differences in the capabilities of those communities which tended to favor the visually and hearing impaired.

Until the emergence of the disability rights movements of the 1960s and 70s, most education of people with disabilities took place in segregated facilities supported by churches and charitable organizations. During this period, government involvement in special education tended to be meager and carried out through ministries and departments of social welfare, not education.

Employment strategies for people with disabilities emerged in the 1920s and 1930s. During this early period, most of Europe tended to favor quota and quota levy systems while the emphasis in the United States, Canada, Sweden, Finland and Denmark tended to be on vocational rehabilitation and training strategies. The Soviet Union employed a unique system of reserved employment schemes and state authorized disabled-run enterprises. Though elements of all three approaches continue to exist in various forms, vocational rehabilitation has enjoyed the most widespread acceptance, and still serves as the centerpiece of many national disability policies. Though clearly an improvement over the custodial care strategies that preceded them, traditional vocational rehabilitation strategies have tended to focus too heavily on adapting disabled people to existing marketplaces, and too little on the need to make the marketplaces themselves more accessible and accommodating. They have also tended to waste resources on expensive, counterproductive and socially isolating segregated institutional systems.

Policies to reduce architectural and design barriers are relatively new and, in their absence, built environments have typically been designed with characteristics that unnecessarily restrict the activities of people with below “normal” functional capabilities. In recognition of the limitations imposed on people with disabilities by unnecessary architectural barriers, accessibility standards appeared in the United States in 1961 and Great Britain in 1965. Statutory requirements emerged later in the 1960s in Sweden and Denmark. The first compliance mechanisms appeared in the United States in 1981 and Britain in 1985.

Chapter III: Disability Policy Today

“Disability Policy Today” describes and analyzes the emerging global commitment to equalizing access for people with disabilities to social and economic opportunities.

The human rights argument for equalizing opportunities for people with disabilities was initially expressed by the United Nations in its 1971 Declaration on the Rights of Mentally Retarded Persons and its 1975 Declaration on the Rights of Disabled Persons. The philosophy was then fully articulated in the World Program of Action Concerning Disabled Persons (WPA), adopted by the General Assembly in 1982. The Standard Rules on the Equalization of Opportunities for People with Disabilities (Standard Rules), unanimously adopted in 1994, were designed to add a framework for disability policy implementation by Member States. Although not legally binding,

viii

the Standard Rules provide basic international legal standards for programs, laws and policy on disability; and constitute the foundation for almost all modern disability policy.

Similar to the evolution of the United Nations disability policy, which culminated in the WPA and the Standard Rules, the evolution of European Union disability policy began with the introduction of inclusionary principles in individual programs and projects and culminated in the wide ranging Resolution of the Council and of the Representatives of the Governments of the Member States Meeting within the Council of 1996 on the Equality of Opportunity for People with Disabilities (1996 Resolution), which adheres to the principles embodied in the WPA and the Standard Rules and expresses a commitment to equalizing opportunities for disabled people.

Most nations now have disability policies which express commitments to equalizing opportunities for disabled people. Predictably considering their long histories of dealing with disability issues and considering their relative abundance of resources, the world’s high income countries, particularly those in Europe and North America, tend to be characterized by more advanced and better funded institutional approaches to disability than most low and middle income countries. However, though low income countries are still the least likely to have national disability policies, most do; and despite their limited resources and lack of experience with disability issues, many of them have national disability policies that reflect the ICIDH-2 conceptualization of disability and embody an explicit commitment to equalizing opportunities for people with disabilities.

The emerging global commitment to equalizing opportunities for disabled people implies much more than a simple commitment to traditional anti-discrimination principles. It also implies a commitment to removing and preventing social and environmental barriers that have traditionally restricted access for people with disabilities to social and economic opportunities. Fulfillment of this commitment, therefore, requires an expansion of disability policies and strategies to include not only traditional rehabilitation and anti-discrimination measures, but also affirmative strategies to prevent and remove social and environmental barriers.

Chapter IV: Disability Trends and Issues

“Disability Trends and Issues” describes the evolution of disability policy and practice since the emergence of the disability movements of the 1960s and 70s, and the global commitment to equalizing opportunities for people with disabilities in the 1980s and 90s.

Since the emergence of the disability rights movements of the 1960s and 70s, disability strategies in most high income countries have tended to consist of disconnected combinations of modern inclusive approaches, and elements of the rehabilitation, special education and/or custodial care approaches of the past. However, national and international policy commitments to equalizing opportunities for disabled people, and pressure from organizations of disabled people, are causing the emphasis of disability policy to shift in favor of inclusive policies and strategies designed to remove and prevent environmental barriers and increase access for disabled people to mainstream social services, particularly education.

In developing countries, disability service systems have tended to consist of small scale, rehabilitation, education, training and sheltered employment programs and projects imported from

industrialized countries. Due to their high costs, such programs have never reached significant proportions of their target populations. Their impacts have been further diminished by the types of conceptual problems that have long plagued their prototypes in industrialized countries.

Developing countries are, however, beginning to augment and replace these imported programs and projects with approaches better suited to their social and economic environments. Community Based Rehabilitation (CBR) programs tend to form the hubs of such strategies, to which activities are attached that are designed to empower, educate and provide employment opportunities for people with disabilities. CBR strategies are integral to the national disability policies of many low and middle income countries, and CBR is increasingly employed in the peace building process in post conflict circumstances. In developing countries, CBR programs tend to be initiated and heavily supported by development agencies and NGOs. The World Bank currently supports at least one of these efforts, the War Victims Rehabilitation Project in Bosnia-Herzegovinia.

Employment

National employment policies for people with disabilities are beginning to reach beyond the traditional hiring quotas, reserved employment schemes and rehabilitation strategies of the past, to address the root causes of inequalities in the workplace. Private sector involvement is being promoted through partnerships with employers, employees and organizations of disabled people; and compulsion is being replaced with programs that rely on market forces, competition and individual and employer responsibility. Specialized agencies are being replaced with strategies to include disabled people in mainstream labor market programs and activities wherever possible, often as a priority group. Mainstream provision is then augmented with specialized services to meet the needs of disabled people that are disability specific. Efforts are also being made to increase competition in service provision which are, among other things, creating opportunities as service providers for disabled people and disabled peoples’ organizations.

There are two general approaches to providing workplace accommodation; the North American approach, developed in the United States and Canada, in which employers are required to accommodate the known limitations of disabled employees, and the European approach in which employers are required to make their entire workplaces accessible.

Financial incentives are increasingly used to facilitate the employment of disabled people. Financial incentives to employers include grants, relief from social security contributions, tax credits and wage subsidies. Financial support to employees may take the form of direct assistance for tools, equipment, educational material, readers and technical and motorized aids. Social security measures are now also being designed to encourage disabled beneficiaries to become employed. Severely disabled people, who traditionally have not been supported to enter into mainstream labor markets, now are; and sheltered work is increasingly being augmented or replaced with “supported employment,” which offers employment options in mainstream enterprises to severely disabled persons.

Education

As part of the global commitment to equalizing opportunities for disabled people, many international declarations and proclamations have been made recognizing the rights of people with

disabilities to equal educational opportunities in mainstream educational settings wherever possible. The stated policy in most industrialized countries is to integrate disabled children into mainstream educational systems wherever possible. Inclusive education efforts outside of Europe and North America are few. Since the promulgation of the WPA and the Standard Rules, many developing and other non-western countries have begun to increase their budgets for special education, but few have seriously embraced inclusive education.

A 1993 World Bank study of special education in Asia concluded that; 1) there are personal, social and economic dividends to educating primary school aged children with special educational needs in mainstream schools; 2) most children with special educational needs can be successfully and less expensively accommodated in integrated schools than in segregated institutional settings and; 3) the vast majority of children with special educational needs can be cost-effectively accommodated in regular primary schools.

Architecture and Design

The provision of equal access to built environments is integral to the fulfillment of the global commitment to equalizing opportunities for disabled people. Architecture and design barriers also generate direct economic costs to society by reducing the economic and social output of people with disabilities (and other special needs users). Economic costs are also incurred caring for disabled people who are unemployed or under-employed due to inaccessible built environments.

The following seven principles of Universal Design provide a framework for cost-effective policies and strategies to increase physical accessibility for people with disabilities; flexibility in use, simple and intuitive use, perceptible information, tolerance of error, low physical effort, and size and space for approach and use.

Proponents of the universal design principles argue that today’s inaccessible built environments are the result of inattention to the needs of people with disabilities, not cost considerations, and that they tend to create unnecessary costs for society by artificially creating a class of “special needs users” requiring costly special provisions. Such special provisions tend to exacerbate the social isolation and economic dependency experienced by disabled people and identify them with high costs, government intervention, and annoying, ugly and incongruent additions to structures. In contrast, structures that incorporate universal design principles tend to welcome people with disabilities and other special needs users into the mainstream of society and identify them with design ingenuity, functional beauty and commonality of purpose.

One flagship of Universal Design is the public transportation system in Curitiba, Brazil. Others include the Academical Village Lawn at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville and the headquarters for the Lighthouse for the Blind in New York City. Five South African case studies covering a variety of applications suggest that the cost of providing accessibility can be as low as one half to one percent of the total cost of a project.

Chapter V: Policy Implications for the International Community

“Policy Implications for the International Community” presents a conceptual framework for disability policies and strategies compatible with the global

commitment to equalizing opportunities for disabled people. The appropriate roles for large international organizations in general and the World Bank in particular are presented and discussed.

The global commitment to equalizing opportunities for people with disabilities has two primary purposes:

• to affirm the basic human rights of people with disabilities to equal access to social and economic opportunities and,

• to create environments in which people with disabilities can maximize their capacity for making social and economic contributions.

Nations and international organizations are attempting to develop policies and strategies compatible and commensurate with this commitment within the context of a long history of negative stereotypes about people with disabilities and limited expectations about their capabilities, resulting in a disability environment characterized by self-reinforcing combinations of social and economic discrimination; inaccessible built environments; and expensive, socially isolating, and counterproductive disability policies and institutions. Policy makers attempting to design and implement more inclusionary approaches to disability are doing so in a global setting characterized by meager information, inadequate data and virtually no coordination of activities. The result has been a thin ineffective global patchwork of disjointed and often contradictory disability policies and strategies.

If the commitment to equalizing opportunities for people with disabilities is to be upheld, a more coordinated effort based on a much greater understanding of disability will be required. Coordinated and integrated policies and strategies will have to be put in place to eliminate or mitigate as many of the personal, social and environmental barriers identified in the ICIDH-2 as possible while empowering as many disabled people as possible to maximize their social and economic contributions. This will require that the policies and strategies be designed to facilitate the passage of disabled people through the following three distinct but interrelated stages of physical and social integration;

1) adapting to the disabling condition and maximizing functional capacity;

2) interacting with community and society; and

3) gaining access to the types of social and economic activities that give life meaning and purpose (e.g. contributing to one’s family and community, actively participating in society and/or becoming productively employed).

Piecemeal disability interventions are not likely to be cost-effective because their beneficial impacts cannot be fully realized unless their beneficiaries maximize their functional capabilities and pass through as many of the stages of physical and social integration as possible. Ideal disability strategies will be comprehensive and integrated combinations of:

• rehabilitation strategies which maximize the functional capabilities of people with disabilities;

xii

• inclusion and empowerment strategies which facilitate their active participation in their communities, societies and economies; and

• architecture and design strategies that remove and prevent unnecessary barriers in built environments.

Some people will incur disabilities so severe that they will be incapable of successfully passing through all three stages of physical and social integration, even within the context of the types of comprehensive strategies outlined above. Members of this minority sub-group will require specialized support services throughout their lives in order to survive. Others will require various forms of lifetime support (e.g. ongoing personal assistance services) to remain capable of making social and economic contributions. Still others will require specialized support services at various times in their lives to overcome specific obstacles (e.g. specialized training, rehabilitation and modifications to homes and workplaces). To be cost-effective and commensurate with the global commitment to equalizing opportunities for people with disabilities, these services must be;

• designed to facilitate access to the social and economic mainstream;

• provided in mainstream institutional settings wherever possible; and

• provided within the context of the comprehensive inclusion and empowerment strategies outlined above.

The Role of Large International Organizations

Significant progress toward fulfilling the global commitment to equalizing opportunities for disabled people will require the leadership and participation of the world’s large international organizations. Unfortunately, their participation to date has been piecemeal, and their leadership has tended to be weak and ineffective. In the absence of significant participation and leadership on the part of the large international organizations, most nations are now hampered by a paucity of data and information on disability, and a lack of coordination of activities and strategies.

To be in a position to educate and inform the international community about appropriate and costeffective approaches to disability, and to be in a position to provide those wishing to improve their approaches to disability with the information, coordination and access to resources they require, large international organizations will have to demonstrate their own inclusionary resolve by;

• making policy commitments and adopting institutional mandates to include people with disabilities and a concern for their rights and needs in all of their own mainstream activities and programs; and

• committing themselves to developing and supporting comprehensive and integrated national and international strategies to remove and prevent the types of social, architectural and design barriers that unnecessarily limit access for people with disabilities to social and economic opportunities.

This involves a commitment to the following inclusionary principles:

• Adoption and promotion of inclusionary policies and practices.

xiii

• Removal and prevention of architectural and design barriers.

• Adoption of affirmative strategies to include people with disabilities in mainstream educational, vocational, political, and recreational activities.

• Support for, and constructive engagement with, organizations of people with disabilities.

• Provision of cost-effective assistive technology.

The Role of the World Bank

Due to the global influence of the World Bank, the approach to disability it chooses will have a great impact on the rate of progress toward fulfilling the global commitment to equalizing opportunities for disabled people. If the Bank chooses to adopt a comprehensive disability strategy in support of the global commitment to people with disabilities, it is in an almost unique position to significantly and cost-effectively foster the social and economic inclusion of disabled people by;

• changing operational practices,

• engaging in inclusionary lending activities and,

• engaging in inclusionary non-lending activities.

Changing Operational Practices

The World Bank has the opportunity to significantly and cost-effectively contribute to the global inclusion and empowerment of people with disabilities simply by setting the proper example. Doing so includes making the following changes in its operational practices:

Adopting a comprehensive Bankwide inclusionary policy: In order to effectively advocate for the inclusion of people with disabilities, the World Bank must demonstrate its own commitment by adopting and implementing an explicit policy to include people with disabilities and a concern for their rights and needs in all aspects of its own operations.

Taking affirmative steps to employ people with disabilities: An effective inclusionary World Bank disability strategy must involve a hiring process that encourages the participation of people with disabilities.

Removing existing architectural barriers at Bank facilities: As the social and economic inclusion and empowerment of people with disabilities largely hinges on physical access, it goes without saying that physically accessible facilities are a necessary component of a successful World Bank disability strategy. Unfortunately, however, at the present time some World Bank facilities are fundamentally inaccessible. Due to the expense of achieving the ultimate goal of full accessibility, the Bank should consider a comprehensive but incremental approach.

Lending Initiatives

Significant opportunities also exist for the World Bank to foster the global inclusion and empowerment of people with disabilities through initiatives in:

xiv

Lending for development activities and social programs: By taking affirmative steps to include people with disabilities in all of the development activities it supports, the Bank has the power to directly increase the social and economic contributions of people with disabilities while simultaneously demonstrating the social and economic benefits of inclusion and empowerment to its clients and to the rest of the international community.

Lending for physical infrastructure: To the extent that the World Bank makes loans for the construction of schools, public buildings, transportation systems, streets paths and other public infrastructure, it has the opportunity to facilitate their accessibility at a very low cost simply by promoting barrier free design and providing information to its clients about the most cost-effective methods for its application.

Non-Lending Activities

Perhaps the most significant and cost-effective opportunities for the World Bank to contribute to the social and economic inclusion of people with disabilities are in its non-lending activities where it can capitalize on its role as a leading international development organization to facilitate necessary public awareness and institutional training. Such activities include:

Serving as a standard bearer for cost-effective inclusionary disability policies and strategies: By adopting comprehensive disability policies and strategies the Bank can serve, through its own example, as a standard bearer for the inclusion and empowerment of people with disabilities.

Facilitating the coordination of the disability activities of international organizations: International organizations are presently engaged in various disability activities that tend to be carried out in an unstructured piecemeal fashion with virtually none of the necessary coordination at the international and interagency level. The Bank is in a uniquely powerful position to use its stature in the international community and its own proven techniques and capabilities to costeffectively facilitate the necessary international cooperation and coordination.

Contributing to the global knowledge base on disability: At present, information and data on disability are scarce, unreliable and scattered among organizations and institutions around the world. The World Bank is in a key position to begin to solve this problem by applying its expertise in data collection and information dissemination to matters related to disability.

Facilitating disability related training and education for the international development assistance community: As the leading international economic development institution, the Bank is in a unique position to assist in the design and implementation of cost-effective strategies for bringing disabled people into the social and economic mainstream, and to discourage the wasteful social and economic segregation of people with disabilities.

Supporting and constructively engaging organizations of people with disabilities: Designing and implementing cost-effective disability strategies worldwide requires an intimate knowledge of the wide range of cultural, institutional and environmental circumstances in which disabled people live. The real repositories of local knowledge on disability in particular countries or regions are the disabled people who live there, and the most efficient way to tap into their local knowledge is to provide them with mechanisms for making their needs known. Significant returns are possible

from Bank investments in partnerships to support, network and constructively engage organizations of people with disabilities.

Promoting research and development in the area of assistive technology: As one of the largest knowledge bases and providers of education and training, the Bank has the opportunity to costeffectively foster the development of assistive technology through collaboration with United Nations agencies, research centers and other international organizations in support of research on assistive technology and international cooperation on the global dissemination of information about assistive technology.

xvi

I. DISABILITY DEFINITIONS AND STATISTICS

Disabilities occur as a result of physical, mental and sensory impairments. The severity of the disability associated with any given impairment for any given person is a complex function of the impact of the impairment on the person’s functional capabilities, and the combined impacts of many other social and environmental factors on the person’s ability to gain access to his or her family, community and society.

1.1 The Ascendancy of the ICIDH and ICIDH-2

There are presently two competing conceptual frameworks for disability analysis; the “International Classification of Impairments, Activities and Participation” (ICIDH-2) developed by the World Health Organization (WHO), and the “Disability Adjusted Life Year” (DALY) developed by the Harvard School of Public Health on behalf of the WHO and the World Bank. The ICIDH-2 is the superior framework for disability policy and research.

DALYs are standardized estimates of the value of years of life lived with specific disabilities intended to measure “the global burden of disease and the effectiveness of health interventions.” ¹They are, however, inadequate for either task due to their conceptual basis in the following two false assumptions:

1) specific disabilities have specific, universal and predictable quality of life consequences and,

2) the quality of life associated with any disability is determined solely by the underlying medical diagnosis.

The first false assumption renders the DALY inadequate for measuring the global burden of disease because it leaves the system with no mechanism for evaluating and measuring the roles played by environmental factors in determining the severity of disabilities; the second renders the DALY inadequate for measuring the effectiveness of health interventions because it leads to the erroneous conclusion that such interventions can have no effect; and together they render the DALY dangerously misleading because they inaccurately suggest that the prevention of impairments is the only available strategy for reducing the negative consequences of disability. ²

The ICIDH-2 classification system and its predecessor, the International Classification of Impairments, Disabilities and Handicaps (ICIDH), are both far more robust than the DALY framework because, unlike the DALY, they both incorporate social and environmental factors into their conceptualization of disability.

In the original ICIDH, disablement was comprised of three separate but interrelated elements; impairments, disabilities and handicaps. A disability was defined as “a restriction or lack of ability to perform an activity in [a] manner or within [a] range considered normal for a human being.” ³Disabilities were seen to be caused by impairments which were defined as losses or

¹World Bank, World Development Report 1993 (Washington, D.C., 1993). ²See Annex A, The Disability Adjusted Life Year.

³ICIDH definition in United Nations, Disability Statistics Compendium (New York, 1990), 1.

abnormalities of psychological, physiological or anatomical structure or function. Impairments and disabilities were both seen to be causally linked to handicaps which were defined as disadvantages that limit or prevent the fulfillment of a role considered to be normal depending on age, sex and social and cultural factors. ⁴The relationships between these three elements appear in Figure 1.1:

Figure 1.1: The Disablement Phenomena as Conceptualized in the Original ICIDH

Impairments Disabilities Handicaps

Disease or Disorder

Source: World Health Organization, ICIDH-2, 11.

As conceptualized in the ICIDH, an impairment (caused by a disease or disorder) may result in a disability which, in turn, may lead to a handicap, as is the case when polio (a disease) results in paralysis (an impairment) which limits a person’s mobility (a disability), which, in turn, limits the person’s ability to find employment (a handicap). It is also possible for an impairment which does not result in a disability to still lead to a handicap, as is the case when a facial disfigurement (an impairment) limits a person’s ability to socially interact (a handicap), even though it does not result in a functional limitation (a disability).

The ICIDH was a breakthrough for disability policy and research because it was the first system to recognize the influences of personal, social and environmental factors on people with disabilities, and to thus be compatible with the fact that rehabilitation has the power to reduce functional limitations (i.e. disabilities), and social policy has the power to alter environmental contexts (e.g. cultures, institutions and natural and built environments), and thus affect the social and economic opportunities afforded to people with disabilities.

The ICIDH-2, now in field trials, is an attempt on the part of the WHO to improve the ICIDH system by responding to criticisms of the original framework and taking advantage of insights gained during its use. Within the ICIDH-2 framework:

Disablement is an umbrella term covering three dimensions: (1) body structures and functions; (2) personal activities and; (3) participation in society. These dimensions of health-related experience are termed as “impairments of function and impairments of structure,” “activities” (formerly disabilities) and “participation” (formerly handicaps) respectively. ⁵

An “impairment” is defined as a loss or abnormality of body structure, or of physiological or psychological function; “activity” is defined as the nature and extent of functioning at the level of the person; and “participation” is defined as the nature and extent of a person’s involvement in life situations in relation to impairments, activities, health conditions and contextual factors. In this model, activity restrictions and limitations on participation are recognized to be influenced by

⁴World Health Organization, International Classification of Impairments, Disabilities and Handicaps (Geneva, 1980).

⁵World Health Organization, International Classification of Impairments, Activities and Participation (ICIDH-

2) (Geneva,1997), 5.

environmental factors (e.g. natural and built environments, cultures, institutions and prevailing attitudes about people with disabilities) and personal factors (e.g. gender, age, education, social background and life experience).

The replacement in the ICIDH-2 of the terms disability and handicap with the terms activity and participation came about in response to objections to the use of disability and handicap by some in the disability community. The division of the impairment dimension into two parts, impairment of function and impairment of structure, and the inclusion of environmental and personal contextual factors as elements that may restrict activity and limit participation, allow ICIDH-2 to more fully encompass the significant roles played by personal and environmental factors in determining the extent of disablement associated with any given disabling condition. ⁶

Figure 1.2 outlines the expanded range of possible links between health conditions and contextual factors incorporated into the ICIDH-2.

Figure 1.2: Current Understanding of Interactions within ICIDH-2 Dimensions Health Condition (disorder/disease)

Impairment Activity Participation

Contextual Factors

A. Environmental

B. Personal

Source: World Health Organization, ICIDH-2, 12.

The ICIDH-2 framework, as depicted in Figure 1.2, recognizes that people may:

• have impairments without having activity limitations (e.g. have a disfigurement in leprosy that may produce no activity limitations), • have activity limitations without evident impairments (e.g. experience poor performance in daily activities caused by a disease), • have limited participation without impairments or activity limitations (e.g. experience discrimination due to HIV or past mental illness), or • experience a degree of influence in a reverse direction (e.g. experience muscle atrophy due to inactivity or a loss of social skills due to institutionalization). ⁷

⁶See Annex B, The ICIDH-2 Categories at the Two Digit Level. ⁷World Health Organization, ICIDH-2, 13.

1.2 The Current Status of Disability Statistics

Prior to the introduction of the ICIDH in 1980, internationally comparable disability statistics were virtually non-existent due to variations in the definitions of disability. The ICIDH and ICIDH-2 were designed to overcome this problem by providing standardized disability definitions for systematic use in data collection strategies employing the United Nations Framework for Integration of Social, Demographic and Related Statistics. ⁸ Despite this breakthrough, however, the formulation of disability policy is still significantly hampered by inadequate data and statistics.

The creation of the United Nations Disability Statistics Data Base (DISTAT) in 1988 represents the first comprehensive attempt to identify and compile the world’s existing national disability statistics. In their search for disability statistics to include in the DISTAT, the United Nations Statistical Office (UNSO) and its partner in the project, the Research Institute of Gallaudet University, found that only 95 countries or areas had collected statistics on people with disabilities between 1975 and 1988. Though most of these statistics were gathered using the original ICIDH classification system, thus eliminating some of the definitional problems that had previously hampered international comparison of data sets, the existing data were found to be scarce, random and inadequate for analyses of national and regional disabled populations, and comparisons of the circumstances of people with disabilities across social and geographic categories. Though the DISTAT has now grown to contain disability statistics from 177 national studies from 102 countries, the data are presently being formatted by the UNSO for electronic dissemination and are yet to be analyzed at the time of this writing. ⁹

1.2.1 Population Size Estimates

Due to the inadequacy of existing disability data, published estimates of national, regional and global disabled populations are little more than speculation and educated guesswork. For example, the WHO and the United Nations have long asserted that people with disabilities comprise approximately 10% of any national population. Recently, however, the author of the WHO estimate has suggested instead that the proportion is more likely to be about 4% of the population in developing countries and 7% in developed countries. ¹⁰The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) has also backed away from the 10% figure, and now estimates the global proportion to be 5.2%. Despite this international trend toward a lowering of previous estimates, some still estimate disabled proportions to be 10% or more. The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) estimates the disabled proportion of the global population

8United Nations, Toward a System of Social and Demographic Statistics, Statistical papers, Series F., No. 18, Sales No. E.74.XVII.8. People with disabilities are to be identified in national censuses, surveys or registration systems by their impairments or disabilities in the ICIDH system or their impairments or activity limitations in the ICIDH-2 system. For comparative analyses of disability issues across different populations (e.g. women, children, rural poor, etc.), the crosscutting measures of socioeconomic equality, economic opportunity and marginality contained in the United Nations Framework for Integration of Social, Demographic and Related Statistics are then to be used to evaluate the nature and extent of any associated handicaps or participation restrictions.

⁹Joan Vanek and Margaret Mbogoni of the United Nations Statistical Division, telephone conversation with the author, 18 March 1999.

¹⁰Peter Coleridge, Disability, Liberation, and Development (Oxford: Oxfam, 1993), 108.

to be 10% or more, and the Roeher Institute in Toronto Canada, estimates the global proportion to be 13% to 20%. ¹¹

The author of this study has estimated the disabled populations of 175 countries by applying UNDP estimates of the proportions of people with disabilities in High Human Development (HHD), Medium Human Development (MHD) and Low Human Development (LHD) countries (9.9%,

3.7% and 1.0% respectively) to United Nations population estimates for the corresponding countries. Ranges were estimated using a sensitivity analysis designed to overcome documented downward biases in the UNDP proportion estimates. ¹²

Table 1.1: Estimated Ranges of Populations of People with Disabilities

Human Development Category Low Estimate High Estimate High Human Development Countries 124,226,190 124,226,190 Medium Human Development Countries 93,517,500 250,222,500 Low Human Development Countries 17,650,000 174,735,000 TOTAL 235,393,690 549,183,690

Table 1.1 presents a summary of the results. ¹³The total global disabled population is estimated to be between 235.39m and 549.18m persons; the total disabled population of the HHD countries is estimated to be 124.23m; the range for the MHD countries is estimated to be between 93.52m and 250.22m; and the range for the LHD countries is estimated to be between 17.65m and 174.74m.

1.2.2 Estimates of GDP Lost Due to Disability

The authors have also estimated the annual value of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) lost as a result of disability globally and in 207 countries by extrapolating the results of research which estimated the GDP lost due to disability in Canada (the Canadian Study) to the rest of the world using UNDP’s unemployment rate estimates and GDP estimates for the other 206 nations.

¹⁴A word of caution is in order regarding the reliability of these estimates due to poor and their de facto basis in the following assumptions;

1) the researchers involved in the Canadian Study accurately measured the GDP lost due to disability in Canada.

2) the circumstances in Canada accurately reflect circumstances in the rest of the world.

¹¹Health Canada, The Economic Burden of Illness in Canada, 1993 (Ottawa, 1997) and Marcia Rioux, Enabling the Well-Being of Persons with Disabilities (Toronto: Roeher Institute, 1998), 2.

12For the methodology employed, see Annex C, National and Global Disabled Population Estimates. ¹³The low and high ends of the HHD estimates are the same due to the way the sensitivity analysis was conducted. See Annex C for a full explanation.

¹⁴For a more detailed discussion of the results and the methodology employed, see Annex D, Estimates of GDP Lost Due to Disability. The Canadian Study on which this research is based is, Health Canada, The Economic Burden of Illness in Canada, 1993 (Ottawa, 1997).

Despite the limitations imposed by unreliable data and the above assumptions, the analysis was requested by the Bank to provide a rough estimate of one of the economic costs of disability and an embryonic framework for future research in this area. As the resulting estimates are extremely rough already, it was decided that it would not add to the reliability of the analysis to attempt to refine it by making further assumptions (e.g. about rates of capital utilization). Table 1.2 contains a summary of the results.

Table 1.2: Total Annual Value of GDP Lost Due to Disability

Value of GDP Lost (US Dollars) High Estimate Low Estimate High Income Countries 1,264,232,430,105 891,283,863,224 Medium Income Countries 480,206,038,845 338,545,257,386 Low Income Countries 192,002,986,035 135,362,105,155 TOTAL 1,936,441,454,985

$ 1,365,191,225,765

The global GDP lost annually due to disability is estimated to be between $1.37 trillion and $1.94 trillion. For the world’s high income countries, the range is estimated to be between $891.28 billion and $1.26 trillion, for the medium income countries it is estimated to be between $338.55 billion and $480.21 billion, and for the low income countries it is estimated to be between and $135.36 billion and $192.00 billion.

1.2.3 Geographic Distribution

There is little agreement concerning the distribution of people with disabilities between developing and developed countries. UNDP has estimated the proportional rates of disability for the world’s HHD, MHD and LHD countries using DISTAT data to be 9.9%, 3.7% and 1.0% respectively, but there are documented downward biases in the UNDP estimates for MHD and LHD countries which make them highly unreliable. ¹⁵However, house to house surveys in India which found that the disabled proportions of selected village populations were less than 1%, and surveys conducted in refugee camps in Jordan and the Occupied Territories which found the disabled proportion of the general population to be around 2%, suggest that developing country disabled populations might be in line with the UNDP estimates. However, far more work remains to be done before such proportions can be accurately estimated. ¹⁶

Data inadequacies also make it impossible to accurately estimate the distribution of people with disabilities between rural and urban areas. When the United Nations estimated the rural/urban disability ratios for 13 countries in the DISTAT data base, they found that 10 of the 13 countries experienced rural/urban disability ratios greater than one, indicating higher proportions of people with disabilities in rural areas. ¹⁷Another United Nations study supports this finding, reporting that rates of blindness, loss of sight in one eye, and deaf mutism are all higher in rural than urban areas. With respect to the Syria, Egypt and India, the study reports:

¹⁵See Annex C, National and Global Disabled Population Estimates, 63-64.

¹⁶Coleridge, Disability, Liberation, and Development, 104.

¹⁷United Nations, Disability Statistics Compendium, 43.

The consistency with which rural/urban differences are reported leaves little doubt that impairment problems are more severe in rural areas, although rates in both areas are likely understated due to underenumeration of impairments in general. ¹⁸

Due to the small sample sizes, the results of these studies are far from conclusive, and arguments have been made in favor of an urban disability bias. ¹⁹Some argue that there might be higher incidences of disabilities in cities than in rural areas due to higher rates of traffic and industrial accidents Others argue that disabled people might tend to migrate to the cities from the countryside in response to a greater likelihood of finding sedentary employment, more promising begging opportunities, improved disability services or better medical care. As yet, however, data are insufficient to provide a definitive answer to this basic question.

1.2.4 Disability and Age

Using DISTAT data, United Nations Researchers compared the proportions of the general populations of 19 countries that were over 60 years of age with the proportions of the disabled populations that were over 60 years of age. They found that the age-structures among disabled persons in these 19 countries were more elderly than the age structures of the general populations, which were predominantly either youthful or middle-aged. ²⁰ Though again unreliable as an indicator of the global relationship between disability and age due to the small sample sizes involved, this result is consistent with common sense and with the opinion of most disability experts that disability incidence and prevalence increase with age.

1.2.5 Disability and Employment

Employment statistics for people with disabilities in high income countries are not only unreliable due to bad data, incompatible disability definitions and statistical biases; they are also plagued by huge differences in employment definitions. Employment statistics for people with disabilities are virtually non-existent in developing countries. Nevertheless, the existing evidence suggests that unemployment rates for people with disabilities in high income countries are extremely high, and that unemployment rates for people with disabilities in developing countries are at least as high or higher. In the United States, only 14.3 million of an estimated 48.9 million people with disabilities were reported to be employed in 1991-92.21 In Austria, where people with disabilities must register, only 69% of those who registered were reported to be employed in 1994.22 In 1996, it was estimated that no more than 30% of the disabled people in Belgium were employed. ²³Only 48.2% of the disabled people in Canada were reported to be employed in 1991, with 51.8% either unemployed or “not in the labor force.” ²⁴ According to the Commission of the

¹⁸United Nations, Development of Statistics of Disabled Persons: Case Studies (New York, 1986), 67-68.

¹⁹Coleridge, Disability, Liberation, and Development, 106.

²⁰United Nations, Disability Statistics Compendium, 32.

²¹Americans with Disabilities: 1991/2, January 1994.

²²K. Leichsenring and C Strumpel, Employment and Living for People with a Disability in the Province of Salzburg, 1994 in Patricia Thornton and Neil Lunt, Employment Polices for Disabled People in Eighteen Countries: A Review (University of York: Social Policy Research Unit, 1997).

²³E. Samoy, Arme gehandicapten in J. Vranken et al Armoede en sociale uitsluiting: Jaarboek 1996 (Leuven: ACCO, 1996) 251-263 in Thornton and Lunt, Employment Polices for Disabled People in Eighteen Countries,

40.

²⁴Thornton and Lunt, Employment Polices for Disabled People in Eighteen Countries, 53.

European Communities, “people with disabilities are two or three times more likely to be unemployed and to be so for longer periods than the rest of the population.” ²⁵

II. THE EVOLUTION OF DISABILITY POLICY

Society’s documented interest in disability dates back to the early study and practice of Medicine, as medical scholars and practitioners developed strategies to prevent and overcome impairments that occur due to sickness and injury. Within this narrow context, a disability was defined as an impairment or disturbance at the level of the body, a medical problem to be either prevented or corrected. Disabled people with disabilities that could not be corrected were viewed by society as pitiable and lacking in social and economic potential. As a class, they tended to be included in early European welfare policies among “the worthy poor” deserving of alms. ²⁶

²⁵European Union, The Commission Communication on Equality of Opportunity for People with Disabilities: a New European Community Strategy (Brussels, 1996).

²⁶C. Barnes, Disabled People in Britain and Discrimination (Calgary: Calgary University Press, 1991), 14. Nora Groce, The U.S. Role in International Disability Activities: A History and a Look Towards the Future

Disability was first viewed as a valid concern for scientific inquiry in Eighteenth Century Europe. Most of the initial inquiries consisted of compartmentalized research into the disabling outcomes of specific medical conditions. This early scientific compartmentalization of disability by type contributed to segregated parallel institutional responses to disability which, in turn, led to separate advocacy and self-help organizations for each major category of disability. These early institutional dynamics established two enduring trends that have exerted a powerful influence over the social and material circumstances of people with disabilities for nearly two centuries; one towards approaching disability from a medical perspective, and the other towards the institutional compartmentalization of people with disabilities by type.

2.1 Custodial Care and Special Education

One important discovery that emerged from these early scientific inquiries was that disabled people are capable of learning. This discovery precipitated the emergence of schools and institutions for the blind and the deaf in late Eighteenth Century Europe, and the achievements of the people in these schools improved society’s perception of the capabilities of disabled people.

… with these schools in operation, a gradual change in the perception of disability began to be discernible among the general public. It became apparent that people with disabilities whose lives would traditionally have been quite limited, could do more. This realization was considered to be so new and remarkable that schools for blind and deaf children became regular stopping points on travelers’ venues, and some prominent schools for blind and deaf pupils presented weekly public demonstrations of their students’ accomplishments. ²⁷

Institutions and schools for the physically disabled did not emerge until the 1920s and 30s, long after the first schools for the deaf and blind, and most were affiliated with hospitals. This resulted in a divergence in the capabilities of disability communities which favored the deaf and blind.

From the 1930s on, [schools and institutions for the physically disabled] gradually spread throughout Germany, France, Great Britain, Switzerland and Italy. A hospital-based system, it differed from the deaf and blind communities, where a system of prominent, well-respected educational institutions were centers from which ideas and advocacy [were] disseminated. Early advocacy efforts among blind and deaf groups were frequently run by individuals with disabilities themselves, often utilizing a network of contacts and connections made as students. As such the adult deaf and blind groups often functioned much like alumni organizations, and were often extremely effective. While the growing power of the medical establishment in the latter part of the 19th Century would “medicalize” some issues for blind and deaf individuals, the strong academic and advocacy heritage would provide a balance within the community as a whole. ²⁸

(World Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation International, 1992), 7. Aldred H. Neufeldt and Alison Albright eds. Disability and Self-Directed Employment: Business Development Models (Ontario: Captus University Publications, 1998), 40-41.

²⁷Groce, The U.S. Role in International Disability Activities, 8.

²⁸Ibid., 11.

Much of the education of people with disabilities in Europe and North America tended to take place in segregated custodial care environments supported by churches and other charitable organizations until the disability rights movements of the 1960s and 70s began to successfully advocate for the replacement of such systems with inclusive disability strategies designed to incorporate disabled people into mainstream social and educational programs. During this predisability rights period, the education of people with disabilities was viewed quite differently than the education of the general population, as is evidenced by the fact that government involvement in special education, when it did occur, tended to be carried out through ministries and departments of social welfare, not education.

2.2 Early Employment Strategies

The first employment policies for people with disabilities began to emerge in the 1920s and 1930s. In Europe these strategies took the form of quota and quota levy systems; in the United States, Canada, Sweden, Finland and Denmark they took the form of vocational rehabilitation and training strategies, and in the Soviet Union they took the form of reserved employment and state authorized disabled-run enterprises.

2.2.1 Quota and Quota Levy Systems

Quota schemes for disabled veterans first emerged in Austria, Germany, France and Italy during the early 1920s in response to nearly simultaneous recommendations by an Inter-Allied Conference and the International Labor Organization (ILO). ²⁹Two types of schemes emerged; quota systems which created legal obligations for employers to hire certain percentages of disabled veterans, and quota levy systems which imposed fines or penalties if quotas were not met. In making its recommendation for quotas, the ILO became the first international body to suggest a legal obligation for employers with over a certain number of employees to hire disabled veterans.

Quota and quota levy systems were eventually expanded to include people injured at work, and, by the end of World War II, the UK, the Netherlands, Ireland, Belgium, Greece and Spain had further expanded their quota and quota levy systems to include even wider ranges of people with disabilities. Serious problems began to arise, however, as they were expanded beyond their original target populations, disabled war veterans and people with work injuries. The first problem arose when the addition of other fast growing disabled populations caused the demand for protected employment to increase faster than supply. Levies were also often set too low and weakly enforced, causing many employers to either pay or ignore them instead of employing the requisite number of disabled people. Quota systems have also been found to waste the talents of highly qualified disabled people by directing them into menial positions for which there are unmet quotas regardless of their potential to succeed in other more profitable or significant endeavors.

In recognition of these problems, many quota and quota levy systems have been abandoned, and many others have been augmented with other measures. In the last two decades the UK has abandoned its quota system and the Netherlands has abandoned a planned mandatory quota system after the failure of a preliminary voluntary scheme. Portugal first considered, then decided against, quota systems, Ireland and Belgium restricted their use of quota systems to their public sectors,

²⁹Thornton and Lunt, Employment Polices for Disabled People in Eighteen Countries, 305.

and Germany and France reformed existing systems. At present, however, quota and quota levy systems still exist in over half of the EU countries, and they are included as components of newly emerging national disability strategies in many countries, including China, India, Japan and the Philippines.

2.2.2 Vocational Training and Rehabilitation Strategies

Vocational training and rehabilitation strategies, originally developed in the United States, Canada, Denmark, Sweden and Finland, have evolved in different ways in each country as dictated by their differing customs, cultures and experiences. Rehabilitation first emerged in the United States with the Soldier’s Rehabilitation Act of 1918, through which rehabilitation services were provided to United States war veterans. The landmark Vocational Rehabilitation Act (VR Act) followed in 1928 extending vocational rehabilitation services to employees injured at work. The VR Act established a segregated institutional system for its disabled clients which employed counselors with little formal training but some knowledge of disability to guide them into what were deemed to be “appropriate areas of employment.”

By the 1940s, war injuries, improvements in medical technology and a series of polio epidemics had dramatically increased disabled populations in Europe and North America. In the United States, the institutional response was to significantly increase the scale of Vocational Rehabilitation. The explicit goal of Vocational Rehabilitation was to direct as many people with disabilities into gainful employment as possible in order to reduce their dependence on expensive segregated training and custodial care institutions. Strategies based on this philosophy quickly spread to Europe and around the world where they have endured. Rehabilitation systems still serve as the centerpieces of most national disability policies and strategies, particularly in the high income countries of Europe and North America.

It is now generally recognized that rehabilitation systems have mistakenly tended to focus too much on getting people with disabilities into existing marketplaces, and too little on making the marketplaces themselves more accessible and accommodating. Traditional rehabilitation systems have also tended to waste resources on expensive, counterproductive, socially isolating segregated institutional systems. As valid as these criticisms are, however, Rehabilitation must be given credit for demonstrating that the functional limitations resulting from impairments can be reduced or mitigated; an insight that advanced the conceptual framework of disability policy beyond disability prevention and custodial care, to include consideration of the quality of the lives of people with disabilities. By expanding the disability framework in this way, the field of Rehabilitation expanded the range of approaches to disability beyond corrective medicine and custodial care, to include a much wider range of technical and institutional approaches, including physical and psychological rehabilitation, assistive technology and vocational training.

2.2.3 Protected Employment and State Authorized Disabled-Run Enterprises

In the Soviet Union, a protected employment system was established in 1932 based on a three tiered disability classification system and a mandate to set aside 2% of the jobs at state run enterprises for “employable” people with disabilities. Within this system, people with disabilities were evaluated and classified as either “unable to work,” “able to work if given lighter work

³⁰Groce, The U.S. Role in International Disability Activities, 15.

loads or different surroundings,” or “able to work at ordinary jobs.” ³¹The employability of individuals with disabilities, and the types of work for which they were suitable were determined by Medical-Labor Expert Committees. ³²Though little is written on this system, it was still in existence when the Soviet Union began its political and economic transformation in the late 1980s, and variations of the system still exist in Russia today.

In the 1930s the Soviet Government also began to set aside state enterprises to be managed and operated by disabled people. As these enterprises proved viable, more state enterprises were placed under the management and control of disability organizations. By 1955, eighty five percent of the “employable” people with disabilities in the USSR were self-supporting in disabled-run enterprises. ³³

In the late 1950s, Nikita Kruschev determined that disabled-run enterprises were so successful that their disabled managers and employees were no longer at an economic disadvantage, and began to confiscate their enterprises, leading to a decline in self-employment among the disabled in the Soviet Union. ³⁴However, many disabled-run enterprises survived, and the national umbrella organization of people with physical disabilities in Russia, the All-Russia Society of the Disabled, now controls approximately 15,000 disabled-run businesses employing 45,000 people, 18,000 of which are disabled, under a system of significant tax advantages. ³⁵

2.3 Accessibility Policy

Policies to reduce architectural and design barriers in built environments are relatively new in Europe and North America, with the first emerging in the 1950s; and they are only just now beginning to emerge in developing countries.

In the absence of policy in this area, the fields of design and architecture have long focused almost exclusively on the needs of people possessing a narrow range of capabilities considered to be “normal.” Built environments, therefore, typically contain characteristics that unnecessarily restrict the activities of people with below “normal” functional capabilities. This group of so called special needs users, estimated by the WHO to comprise more than 25% of the world’s population, include people with disabilities, people suffering from ill health and people in normal phases of life cycles in which physical capabilities are typically limited (e.g. infancy, childhood, motherhood and old age). ³⁶Inaccessible built environments are most harmful to people with long term or permanent disabilities, and have traditionally been among the most significant impediments to their social and economic progress.

³¹E. Dunn, “The Disabled in the USSR Today,” in The Disability Perspective, Variations on a Theme, eds. D. Pfeiffer, S.C. Hey, and G. Kiger (Salem Oregon: The Society for Disability Studies and Willamette University, 1990), 225-228.

³²E. Dunne, “The Disabled in Russia,” (Berkeley: Highgate Road Social Science Research Station, n.d.).

³³D. Werner, “Disabled People in Russia,” (Moscow: Russian Federation All-Russia Society of the Disabled, 1994), 8-9.

³⁴Ibid.

³⁵Robert L. Metts, Tracy Echeverria and Nansea Metts, “World Institute on Disability and the All Russia Society of the Disabled Business Plan Training Evaluation,” prepared for the World Institute on Disability, 1995.

³⁶World Health Organization, Report on Disability Prevalence (Geneva, 1993). See Annex E for descriptions of the human ability deficits experienced by “special needs users.”

After limited policy activity in the 1950s, the United States promulgated the American Standard Specification for Making Buildings and Facilities Accessible to, and Usable by, the Physically Handicapped in 1961, and Great Britain promulgated Access for the Disabled to Buildings in 1965.37 Statutory requirements emerged later in the 1960s in Sweden and Denmark. The Architectural and Transportation Barriers Compliance Boards Minimum Guidelines and Requirements for Accessible Design38 were published in United States in 1981, and Britain’s Part T of the Building Regulations39 was published in 1985. Other European and Australasian legislation followed later in the 1980's.

It is generally accepted that the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) ⁴⁰now contains the most comprehensive statutory requirements for accessibility. The ADA’s Title Three: Public Accommodation, and its respective Appendix B, ADA Accessibility Guidelines for Buildings and Facilities (ADAAG) ⁴¹provide legislation addressing the need for accessibility both in new and existing infrastructures. Sections 4.2 through 4.35, which are taken from the American National Standards Institutes document A117.1-1980, provide the framework for the implementation and enforcement of the legislation.

While a plethora of different types of access legislation exist in Europe, the legislative approaches in Sweden and Denmark are regarded as the most comprehensive. Initiatives in Europe to standardize accessibility standards and legislation have been linked to the European Manual and its underlying concept of “integral accessibility.”

⁴²The first draft of the European Manual was published in 1990 in two parts, Part A and Part B. Part A deals with functional principles, and Part B provides technical standards. After various revisions, the European Concept for Accessibility43 was published for consultation in 1995 without any technical standards. In 1996, it was agreed that the document should be revised again with the intention of seeking the endorsement of the European Parliament which could then mandate EU member countries to apply its principles.

³⁷Joint Circular: Ministry of Housing and Local Government 71/65, Ministry of Health 21/65, CP96, Access for the Disabled to Buildings (London: HMSO, 1965).

³⁸United States Architectural and Transportation Barriers Compliance Board, Minimum Guidelines and Requirements for Accessible Design, Federal Register 46 FR 4270 (Washington, D.C., 1981).

³⁹Department of the Environment and the Welsh Office, The Building Regulations 1985, Part M Approved Document Access for the Disabled People ( London: HMSO, 1987).

⁴⁰US Department of Justice, Americans with Disabilities Act, Public Law 101-336, 1990. ⁴¹US Department of Justice, Americans with Disabilities Act, Accessibility Guidelines for Buildings and Facilities (ADAAG) Federal Register 28 CFR 36 (Washington, DC, 1991), Appendix A to Part 36.

⁴²Central Co-ordinating Committee for the Promotion of Accessibility, European Manual for an Accessible Built Environment (Rijswijk IG-Netherlands, 1990).

⁴³Central Co-ordinating Committee for the Promotion of Accessibility, European Concept for Access (Rijswijk, 1995).

III. DISABILITY POLICY TODAY

Advances in Medicine in the last half century have worked together with advances in Rehabilitation to increase the life spans and the quality of the lives of people with disabilities, leading to increases in the size and social and economic potential of the world’s disabled population. As the concerns of this growing disabled population have expanded beyond mere survival and rehabilitation, the scope of disability policy and practice has expanded to include an ever widening array of technical and social issues associated with increasing the productivity of people with disabilities and improving the quality of their lives. As reflected in the ICIDH and ICIDH-2, this has expanded the framework of disability policy beyond concerns for impairment prevention and the reduction of functional limitations, to include a concern for reducing the limitations imposed on people with disabilities by their social, natural and built environments. These changes are causing the focus of disability policy to shift away from the segregated rehabilitation and custodial-care systems of the past, toward strategies that couple rehabilitation with broader social policies and strategies designed to increase the physical accessibility of the built environment and foster the social and economic acceptance, inclusion and empowerment of people with disabilities.

This evolution has both political and economic roots. On the political side, disabled populations are becoming large enough and sophisticated enough to effectively demand their social and economic inclusion as a matter of basic human rights. On the economic side, the traditional segregated rehabilitation and custodial-care systems have proven to be unnecessarily expensive and counterproductive due to the high cost of the institutions on which they are based, and the perverse tendency of these institutions to prevent people with disabilities from gaining social and

economic access. ⁴⁴Policies and strategies to bring people with disabilities into the social and economic mainstream are increasingly seen as superior from an economic perspective because they have the power to increase the economic contributions of people with disabilities, and thus to increase their social and economic contributions while simultaneously reducing expenditures on expensive custodial care.

3.1 United Nations Disability Policy

The evolution of the United Nations approach to disability tends to reflect the above evolution of international thinking on disability, and now embodies some of the most advanced thinking in the field, particularly concerning the need to increase the physical accessibility of built environments, and the need to foster the social and economic acceptance, inclusion and empowerment of people with disabilities.

In the 1950s, in keeping with the conventional wisdom at the time, the United Nations assisted governments to prevent disabilities and to provide traditional rehabilitation services to people with disabilities. United Nations assistance typically took the form of support for advisory missions, workshops for the training of technical personnel, seminars, study groups, scholarships and fellowships for trainers, and the establishing of rehabilitation centers. ⁴⁵

In the 1960s and 70s, pressure from national and international disability rights movements led the United Nations to alter its approach to disability to foster “a fuller participation by disabled persons in one integrated society.” ⁴⁶This philosophy, initially expressed in the 1971 Declaration on the Rights of Mentally Retarded Persons and the 1975 Declaration on the Rights of Disabled Persons, ⁴⁷was fully articulated in 1982 in the World Program of Action Concerning Disabled Persons (WPA).

The WPA’s purpose was [and is],

to promote effective measures for prevention of disability, rehabilitation and the realization of the goals of ‘full participation’ of disabled persons, in social life and development, and of ‘equality’. This means opportunities equal to those of the whole population and an equal share in the improvement in living conditions resulting from social and economic development. These concepts should apply with the same scope and with the same urgency to all countries, regardless of their level of development.

⁴⁴S.L. Percy, Disability, Civil Rights, and Public Policy (Tuscaloosa: The University of Alabama Press, 1989);

R.K. Scotch, From Good Will to Civil Rights (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1984); J.P. Shapiro, No Pity: People with Disabilities Forging a New Civil Rights Movement (New York: Times Books, 1993); and Thornton and Lunt, Employment Policies for Disabled People in Eighteen Countries, 298-301.

⁴⁵United Nations Secretariat, “United Nations and Disabled Persons,” (New York: Division of Social Policy and Development, n.d.), 2.

⁴⁶Ibid., 2. ⁴⁷United Nations General Assembly Resolution 2856 (XXVI), On the Declaration on the Rights of Mentally Retarded Persons (New York, 1971) and United Nations General Assembly Resolution 3447 (XXX), On the Declaration on the Rights of Disabled Persons (New York, 1975).

⁴⁸United Nations, World Program of Action Concerning People with Disabilities (New York, 1982), 1.

The WPA requires member states to:

• plan, organize and finance activities at each level; • create, through legislation, the necessary legal bases and authority for measures to achieve the objectives;

• ensure opportunities by eliminating barriers to full participation; • provide rehabilitation services by giving social, nutritional, medical, educational and vocational assistance and technical aids to disabled persons;

• establish or mobilize relevant public and private organizations; • support the establishment and growth of organizations of disabled persons; • prepare and disseminate information relevant to the issues of the World Programme of

Action.

The General Assembly followed by declaring 1983-92 to be the “Decade of Disabled Persons” in which governments and NGOs were encouraged to implement the WPA. In 1992, the Secretary General reviewed and appraised the implementation of the WPA, and found that progress in achieving its objectives had been slow. ⁴⁹This finding was echoed in a report by the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and Disabled Persons. ⁵⁰After taking note of both reports, the General Assembly “reaffirmed the validity and value of the World Program of Action,” stating that it “provided a firm and innovative framework for disability related issues.” ⁵¹

There followed the Long-Term Strategy to Implement the World Programme of Action concerning Disabled Persons to the Year 2000 and Beyond, ⁵²a disability related complement to a broader General Assembly resolution to “aim for a society for all by the year 2010.”

⁵³This long term strategy was intended to further the implementation of the WPA by establishing concrete targets to be achieved by member states, and by serving as a framework for collaborative action on disability at the national, regional, and international levels. ⁵⁴

In 1994, the General Assembly unanimously adopted the document on which almost all modern disability policy is based, the Standard Rules on the Equalization of Opportunities for Persons with Disabilities (Standard Rules). Although not legally binding, the Standard Rules provide “basic international legal standards for programmess, laws and policy on disability.” ⁵⁵

The Standard Rules are based on the fundamental principle of the WPA, that people with disabilities “have a right to equal opportunities for participation in the life of society.” ⁵⁶This focus on the equalization of opportunities for people with disabilities is important because it

⁴⁹United Nations General Assembly, A/47/415 and Corr.1, para.5 (New York, n.d.). ⁵⁰United Nations, Human Rights and Disabled Persons, Human Rights Study Series (United Nations, Sales No.

E. 92.XIV.4 and corrigendum, n.d.). ⁵¹United Nations General Assembly Resolution 47/88. ⁵²United Nations General Assembly Resolution 49/153. ⁵³United Nations General Assembly Resolution 48/99. ⁵⁴United Nations General Assembly Resolution A/52/351. ⁵⁵United Nations, The Standard Rules on the Equalization of Opportunities for Persons with Disabilities (New York, 1994). See Annex F, The Standard Rules on the Equalization of Opportunities for Persons with Disabilities.

⁵⁶Dimitris Michailakas, “When Opportunity is the Thing to be Equalized,” Disability and Society, 12, no.1 (1997): 19.

implies much more than a simple commitment to traditional anti-discrimination principles which guarantee equal treatment under the law. It goes much further, to imply a commitment to removing and preventing any social and environmental obstacles that restrict access for people with disabilities to social and economic opportunities. In adopting the WPA and the Standard Rules, the Member States agreed in principle to endow their disabled citizens with certain unique social and economic rights (e.g. rights to rehabilitation, special education and access to public and private facilities and programs) over and above the basic rights afforded to the general citizenry (e.g. political rights, property rights and rights of access to judicial mechanisms).

At the regional level, in 1992 the United Nations’ Economic and Social Commission for Asia (ESCAP) issued a resolution declaring the period 1993-2002 to be the “Asian and Pacific Decade of Disabled Persons”:

...with a view to giving fresh impetus to the implementation of the World Programme of Action concerning Disabled Persons in the ESCAP region beyond 1992 and strengthening regional cooperation to resolve issues affecting the achievement of the goals of the World Programme of Action, especially those concerning the full participation and equality of persons with disabilities. ⁵⁷

This resolution, endorsed by the governments of 58% of the world’s population, urges ESCAP member and associate member governments to develop measures to:

...enhance the equality and full participation of disabled persons, including the following:

(a) Formulation and implementation of national policies and programmes to promote the participation of persons with disabilities in economic and social development;

(b) Establishment and strengthening of national coordinating committees on disability matters, with emphasis on, inter alia, the adequate and effective representation of disabled persons and their organizations, and their roles therein;

(c) Provision of assistance, in collaboration with international development agencies and non-governmental organizations, in enhancing community-based support services for disabled persons and the extension of services to their families;

(d) Promotion of special efforts to foster positive attitudes towards children and adults with disabilities, and the undertaking of measures to improve their access to rehabilitation, education, employment, cultural and sports activities and the physical environment... ⁵⁸

⁵⁷United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, Resolution 48/3 on the Asian and Pacific Decade of Disabled Persons, 1993-2002, 1992, 2.

⁵⁸Ibid.

It also stipulates that, during the Decade, member and associate member governments are to be assisted by the Executive Secretary to:

...[formulate and implement] technical guidelines and legislation to promote access by disabled persons to buildings, public facilities, transport and communication systems, information, education and training, and technical aids... ⁵⁹

3.2 European Union Disability Policy

The European Union (EU) has experienced an evolution in disability policy similar to that of the United Nations, with the exception that the EU process started later and, therefore, began with policies and strategies based on more advanced thinking. Similar to the evolution of the United Nations disability policy, which culminated in the Standard Rules, EU disability policy has culminated in the Resolution of the Council and of the Representatives of the Governments of the Member States Meeting within the Council of 1996 on the Equality of Opportunity for People with Disabilities (1996 Resolution), which, like the WPA and the Standard Rules, focuses on equalizing opportunities for people with disabilities. ⁶⁰

During the 1980s and 90s, the EU promulgated a series of declarations and proclamations on disability consistent with the WPA, including the 24 July 1986 Council Recommendation 86/39/eec on The Employment of Disabled People in the Community, which is generally recognized as the first important EU document dealing with the issue of the employment of people with disabilities. In it, the Council encourages Member States:

• to promote fair opportunities for disabled people in the field of employment and vocational training (initial training and employment as well as rehabilitation and resettlement). The principle should apply to access, to retention in employment or vocational training, to protection from unfair dismissal and to opportunities for promotion and in-service training;

• to continue their policies to help disabled people. These policies should provide for the elimination of negative discrimination, for example by avoiding dismissals linked to a disability, and should provide for positive action for disabled people, in particular the making available, in each Member State, of a guide or code of good practice for the employment of disabled people. ⁶¹

The 1988 Helios I Program to promote independent living and social integration of people with disabilities created a platform for Member State cooperation on disability, ⁶²and the 1993 Helios II Program added mechanisms for information exchange on methods related to social integration, equal opportunities and independent living for people with disabilities. ⁶³Between Helios I and

⁵⁹Ibid., 3. ⁶⁰See Annex G, European Union 1996 Resolution. ⁶¹European Union, The Commission Communication on Equality of Opportunity for People with Disabilities: a New European Community Strategy (Brussels, 1996).

⁶²European Union, Council Decision 88/231/EEC Establishing a Second Community Action Programme for Disabled People (Helios) (Brussels, 1988).

⁶³European Union, Council Decision 93/136/EEC Establishing a Third Community Action Programme to Assist Disabled People (Helios II 1993-96) (Brussels, 1993).

Helios II, the Council adopted a resolution recognizing the importance of integrating children with disabilities into mainstream educational programs. ⁶⁴

During the 1980s and 90s, the EU has also systematically incorporated disability concerns and issues into many of its mainstream programs.

The Community's structural funds, especially the European Social Fund, were and are playing a significant part in Europe’s drive to promote equal opportunities for people with disabilities. The mainstream Community Support Frameworks (CSFS) and the Single Programming Documents (SPDS) 1994-1999 either have measures devoted directly to disability, or provide measures which can be utilized by people with disabilities. The Employment Community Initiative has a specific strand - HORIZON - specially dedicated to the integration in the labour market of people with disabilities.

The strategy presented in the EU’s most important and far reaching document on disability, the 1996 Resolution, and in its forerunner, The Commission Communication on Equality of Opportunity for People with Disabilities: a New European Community Strategy, 30 July 1996, adheres to the principles of inclusion and empowerment embodied in the WPA, and expresses the EU’s commitment to “the principles and values that underline the United Nations Standard Rules on the Equalization of Opportunities for Persons with Disabilities.”

The 1996 Resolution calls on Member States to “consider if relevant national policies take into account...the following orientations:”

• empowering people with disabilities for participation in society, including the severely disabled, while paying due attention to the needs and interests of their families and careers;

• mainstreaming the disability perspective into all relevant sectors of policy formulation;

• enabling people with disabilities to participate fully in society by removing barriers;

• nurturing public opinion to be receptive to the abilities of people with disabilities and toward strategies based on equal opportunities. ⁶⁶

3.3 National Disability Policies

Most national disability policies subscribe to the inclusionary principles embodied in the WPA and the Standard Rules. These principles are largely the result of lessons learned in the relatively

⁶⁴European Union, Resolution of the Council and the Ministers for Education Meeting with the Council Concerning Integration of Children and Young People with Disabilities into Ordinary Systems of Education (Brussels, 1990).

⁶⁵European Union, The Commission Communication on Equality of Opportunity for People with Disabilities: a New European Community Strategy (Brussels, 1996).

⁶⁶European Union, Resolution of the Council and of the Representatives of the Governments of the Member States on Equality of Opportunity for People with Disabilities, Official Journal C 12, 13.01.1997 (Brussels, 1996).

affluent countries of Europe and North America, and are, therefore, typically embodied in their national policies. Disability policies in most Asian, African, Latin American and Middle Eastern countries, including most developing countries, also embody the modern inclusionary and empowering principles, but for different reasons. Since most of these countries did not begin to adopt national disability policies until after the promulgation of the WPA and the Standard Rules, the principles embodied therein tend to form the conceptual foundations on which their policies are based.

Predictably, considering their long histories of dealing with disability issues and their relative abundance of resources, the world’s high income countries, particularly those in Europe and North America, tend to be characterized by more advanced and better funded institutional approaches to disability than most low and middle income countries. Most high income countries, including the United States, Australia, Germany, Great Britain and Denmark, for example, now augment their traditional service and assistance strategies with anti-discrimination legislation and policy commitments to equalizing opportunities for people with disabilities.

Though far from a perfect system, the widely cited flagship for this approach is the United States approach grounded in the anti-discrimination provisions of the ADA, a comprehensive antidiscrimination law which attempts to guarantee social and economic access for people with disabilities by protecting their rights to employment, public services, public transportation, public accommodations and telecommunications. Almost all aspects of American society fall within the purview of the ADA.

Disability policy in Australia is based on a similar commitment to ensuring “that people with a disability have the same rights, choices and opportunities as other Australians, including the right to participate in community activities and, most importantly, the right to a meaningful job.” ⁶⁷This commitment, expressed in the Social Justice Strategy of 1993 and codified in the Disability Discrimination Act of 1993, outlaws all discrimination on the grounds of disability. The German Constitution has been similarly amended to state that no person may be discriminated against on the grounds of disability.

England’s Disability Discrimination Act of 1995 (DDA) makes it unlawful to discriminate against disabled persons in connection with employment, the provision of goods and services and the buying or renting of land or property. Under the provisions of the DDA, British employers with twenty or more workers must treat disabled individuals as they treat everyone else, and reasonable measures must be taken by employers and providers of goods and services to ensure that they do not discriminate against people with disabilities. The DDA also sets minimum accessibility standards for taxis, rail vehicles and new public services.

The principles of solidarity, normalization, and integration are the basis for disability policy in Denmark. ⁶⁸The aim of Danish policy is to integrate disabled people into schools, labor markets and community life on equal terms with other people using compensatory measures where necessary. ⁶⁹In 1993, the Danish Parliament decided unanimously to recommend that all public and private authorities and businesses comply with the principle of equal treatment of disabled and

⁶⁷Thornton and Lunt, Employment Polices for Disabled People in Eighteen Countries, 4. ⁶⁸Ibid., 66. </

Main	Programme	Materials	Online	Lanzhou

	UN ESCAP/CDPF Field Study cum Regional Workshop on Poverty Alleviation among Persons with Disabilities Lanzhou, Gansu Province, China, 25-29 October 2004