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

Development approaches to empowerment of persons with disabilities; implications for poverty alleviation

Presented by Clinton E. Rapley
Director of Planning Services
Associates for International Management Services (AIMS)

Slide 1

UN ESCAP/CDPF Field Study cum Regional Workshop on Poverty Alleviation among Persons with Disabilities

Lanzhou, Gansu Province, China, 25-29 October 2004
Development approaches to empowerment of persons with disabilities;
implications for poverty alleviation

Clinton E. Rapley – Director of Planning Services
Associates for International Management Services

2

Presentation Agenda

• Brief review of international and regional instruments for poverty alleviation
• Development approaches
• Empowerment of persons with disability
• Reinforcing disability perspective in poverty alleviation
• Accessibility with reasonable adaptation
• Strategic framework for capacity building for disability inclusive poverty alleviation policies and programmes

3

United Nations Millennium Declaration

• Adopted at Millennium Summit (United Nations, New York, 6-8 September 2000)
• Development Goal 1: To eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
• Target 1: To halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people whose income is less than a dollar a day
• Indicator: Proportion of population below US$1 (Purchasing Power Parity) per day
• However, there is no reference to persons with disabilities in the Millennium Declaration

Source: <http://www.un.org/millennium/declaration/ares552e.htm>

4

Biwako Millennium Framework

• Priority Action G: Poverty alleviation through capacity-building, social security and sustainable livelihood programmes
• Target 21: Governments should halve, between 1990 and 2015, proportion of persons with disabilities whose income/consumption is less than one dollar a day.
• Suggested Action: Persons with disabilities should be identified as a priority target group in poverty reduction strategies.
• Indicator (proposed): Percentage of population with disability living on less than US$1 (Purchasing Power Parity) per day.

Source: <http://www.unescap.org/esid/psis/disability/bmf/bmf.html>

5

Development Approaches

• Focus on investments in people for development participation as agents and beneficiaries
• Neither object of charity nor subject of medical, welfare or institutionalized services
• Develop human resource potentials for all
• Institutions that are participatory and accountable
• Policies that promote opportunities for creation of income and wealth and provide appropriate safety nets
• Laws that promote and protect rights of all
• Environments that provide accessibility with reasonable adaptation for all

6

Empowerment - the priority

• Empowerment of persons with disabilities is one of the four strategies to achieve BMF targets.
• World Bank’s “Strategic framework paper” (2001) identified “empowering poor people and investing in their assets” as one of the two priority areas for Bank support to increase development effectiveness.
• World Bank’s Empowerment and Poverty Reduction: a sourcebook (June 2002) defines empowerment:
  • The process of increasing the capacity of individuals or groups to make choices and transform those choices into desired actions and outcomes. Central to this process are actions which both build individual and collective assets, and improve the efficiency and fairness of the organizational and institutional context which govern use of these assets.

Sources: <http://siteresources.worldbank.org/EXTABOUTUS/Resources/strategic.pdf>;
<http://lnweb18.worldbank.org/ESSD/sdvext.nsf/68ByDocName/Empowerment>

7

Empowerment in practice

• Common sense approach:

Empowerment:

1. includes awareness building, skill development, confidence building;
2. contributes to improved capacities to participate on the basis of equality as development agents and beneficiaries;
3. is ongoing.

Empowerment would involve:

1. People;
2. Their institutions;
3. Accessible environments;
4. Access to social services and safety nets; and
5. Opportunities for employment and sustainable livelihoods.

8

Procedures - United Nations system

• Common Country Assessment (CCA):
  Common instrument of UN system to analyse national development situation and identify key development issues with a focus on MDGs and other commitments, goals and targets of the Millennium Declaration and international conferences, summits, conventions and human rights instruments of the UN system.
• UN Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF):
  Common strategic framework for the operational activities of the United Nations system at the country level. UNDAF provides a collective, coherent and integrated United Nations system response to national priorities and needs, including Poverty Strategic Reduction Papers [of the World Bank Group] (PRSPs) and equivalent national strategies, within the framework of MDGs and commitments, goals and targets of the Millennium Declaration and international conferences, summits, conventions and human rights instruments of the UN system. An UNDAF emerges from the analyses of the CCA and is the next step in the preparation of United Nations system country programmes and projects of cooperation.
• Country Programme outcomes and strategies:
  Describe how UN system proposes to achieve the expected outcomes identified in UNDAF, which is accomplished by identifying Country Programmes outcomes and main strategies, including those cutting across the expected outcomes in UNDAF. The causal analysis contained in CCA should assist in identifying both UNDAF and Country Programme outcomes.

9

Procedures – World Bank

• Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper process
• World Bank and IMF approach to reduce poverty in low-income countries based on “country-owned” poverty reduction strategies, embodied in a Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP)
• PSRPs serve as a framework for development assistance beyond the operations of the Fund and Bank.
• Content of PRSPs vary but normally include four core elements:
  1. description of country’s participatory process;
  2. poverty diagnosis;
  3. targets, indicators, and monitoring systems; and
  4. priority public actions over a three-year horizon.

10

Procedures – World Bank (2)

• PSRP Cross-cutting themes
  1. Participation
  2. Governance and exercise of power through national economic, social, and political institutions
  3. Community-driven development
  4. Gender – women and men
  5. Environment, with a focus on measures to improve environmental conditions to reduce poverty
  6. Strategic communications and dialogue among stakeholders

11

Procedures – OECD

• OECD Development Assistance Committee Guidelines on Poverty Reduction <http://www.oecd.org/dac/poverty>
• Five major themes:
  • poverty concepts and approaches;
  • partnership issues;
  • country programming;
  • policy coherence; and
  • institutional change in development agencies.
• Steps basic for poverty reduction
  • Identify main causes of poverty;
  • Design and rank policies and actions that address these causes;
  • Specify indicators or goals for monitoring progress; and
  • Seek broad agreement on policies and programmes to tackle poverty.

12

Procedures – OECD (2)

Action agenda for the bilateral community

• Support country-owned, country-led strategies to reduce poverty and base agency programming on country needs and priorities.
• Allocate more development assistance to countries where there is greatest scope to reduce poverty, in the light of number of absolute poor, strength of governmental commitment to address poverty and demonstrated policy performance.
• Reserve funding for countries dealing with external shocks or conflict situations, and for countries with weak development policies.
• Reduce the burden that development co-operation activities create for local partners by combining efforts (such as, joint missions, collaborative research and diagnostics, shared costs), easing administrative requirements (such as simplifying, streamlining and harmonising paperwork and procedures), and co-coordinating agency approaches and actions.
• Invest time and resources to build reciprocal, poverty reduction partnerships.
• Adapt agency structures and working methods to needs of poverty reduction partnerships (which could include strengthened field presence; enhanced field-level decision-making; increased transparency and accountability).

13

Procedures – OECD (3)

Agenda, continued

• Work to develop human and institutional capacity in partner countries.
• Ensure a gender perspective in all policies, programmes and instruments.
• Integrate sustainable development, including environmental concerns, into strategic frameworks for reducing poverty.
• Adopt, to the greatest extent possible, a multi-year timeframe for poverty reduction programming and funding as a complement to multi-year partner government fiscal planning and budgeting..
• Assess development co-operation for its impact on poverty and develop the requisite monitoring and evaluation systems and methodologies.
• Foster and strengthen local capacities to monitor poverty reduction programmes and use of external and domestic resources in the context of debt relief programmes.
• Encourage development of local poverty reduction indicators and targets – and strengthen local statistical, analytical, monitoring and evaluation capacities.

14

Disability insensitive guideline content

• UN CCA and UNDAF / PRSPs / OECD/DAC Guidelines all address:
  • Gender
  • Sustainable environments
  • Vulnerable groups / vulnerability
  • But no reference to persons with disability
  • or environmental accessibility

15

Reinforcing the disability perspective in poverty alleviation policies

• UN Standard Rules: Rule 21 – Technical and economic cooperation provides:
  “States … have the responsibility to cooperate in and take measures for improvement of living conditions of persons with disabilities in developing countries.
  “Special attention should be given to the effects of [technical and economic cooperation] on persons with disabilities . . . [and] that persons with disabilities and their organizations are consulted on any development projects designed for persons with disabilities; [and] involved in [their] development, implementation and evaluation.”
  Priority areas for technical and economic cooperation should include:
  (a) development of human resources through development of skills, abilities and potentials of persons with disabilities and the initiation of employment-generating activities for and of persons with disabilities; and
  (b) development and dissemination of appropriate disability-related technologies and know-how.

Source: <http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/enable/dissre00.htm>

16

Reinforcing the disability perspective in poverty alleviation policies (2)

• Biwako Millennium Framework - Target G.
• Target G - Poverty alleviation through capacity-building, social security and sustainable livelihood programmes:

Governments should … include, as a major target group, persons with disabilities in their national poverty alleviation programmes in order to achieve the Millennium Development Goal target to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger.

Governments should mainstream disability issues into pro-poor development strategies.

17

Reinforcing the disability perspective in poverty alleviation policies (3)

• Comprehensive and integral international convention on protection and promotion of the rights and dignity of persons with disabilities – Draft
• Article 24 bis - International cooperation
• Extract of Mexico text: “State Parties shall engage in international cooperation as an essential element for implementation of this convention in a spirit of solidarity, in particular for the full and equal enjoyment of all human rights and the dignity of persons with disabilities. State Parties at all levels of government should encourage and support the exchange of knowledge, experience and international cooperation with international and regional organizations, specialized agencies, organizations of persons with disabilities, non-governmental organizations, national human rights institutions, as well as other national institutions, private sector, financial institutions and other stakeholders.”
• Extract of text of China: “States Parties recognize that international cooperation is conducive to the implementation of this Convention and undertake to take appropriate measures in coordination with each other as well as with international and regional organizations, [which include]: (a) exchange and sharing of information … [on] progress and challenges in implementing this Convention; (b) mainstream disability issues into cooperation programme framework.”
• Extract of text of Viet Nam: “States parties shall promote direct cooperation with international organizations, including bilateral, multi-bilateral organizations, and non-governmental organizations to strengthen capacity for implementation of this convention.”

18

Accessibility with reasonable adaptation

• Environmental accessibility is an essential component of the broad human rights framework
• Environmental accessibility - Rule 5 of the Standard Rules:
  States should recognize the overall importance of accessibility in the process of the equalization of opportunities in all spheres of society. For persons with disabilities of any kind, States should (a) introduce programmes of action to make the physical environment accessible; and (b) undertake measures to provide access to information and communication.
• Environmental accessibility – Convention, Draft Article 19:
  States Parties to this Convention shall take appropriate measures to identify and eliminate obstacles, and to ensure accessibility for persons with disabilities to the built environment, to transportation, to information and communications, including information and communications technologies, and to other services, in order to ensure the capacity of persons with disabilities to live independently and to participate fully in all aspects of life.

19

Accessibility with reasonable adaptation (2)

• Accessibility: designs that provide flexibility to meet needs, preferences and capacities of end users
• Reasonable accommodation:
  • reasonable for whom
  • level of accommodation
• Reasonable adaptation:
  • accessibility considerations begin at the outset of the design and development process
  • furthers equalization of opportunities
  • promotes inclusion and addresses barriers that exclude many from participating in development

Source: <http://www.worldenable.net/reasonablea/default.htm>

20

Accessibility with reasonable adaptation (3)

• Decision points in implementing an environmental accessibility agenda
  1. Policy frameworks for accessibility
  2. Assessments of user needs and preferences
  3. Standards and guidelines for planning, design and evaluation
  4. Selected procedures and tools
  5. Monitoring and evaluation
  6. Promotion, information and outreach on environmental accessibility for all

21

Strategic framework for capacity building for poverty alleviation

• Reinforcing the disability perspective in mainstream poverty alleviation policies and programmes as well as technical cooperation activities requires:
  1. policy-level decisions of Governments;
  2. procedural decisions on harmonization and simplification by the United Nations system;
  3. full and effective participation by persons with disabilities as agents and beneficiaries of development.

22

Strategic framework (2)

• Policy issues

Achieving an unambiguous commitment of Government to disability-sensitive poverty alleviation can best be realized by formulating objectives with reference to mainstream development policies and priorities; references to outcomes of global conferences and summits can be useful in providing language on relevant global priorities, purposes and timeframes to realize. Objectives formulated with reference to persons with disabilities can easily be characterized as peripheral to overall development; they may also introduce a need to justify “additional” resource implications of objectives targeted to a specific group.

23

Strategic framework (3)

• Participation

Full participation, and equality are recognized goals of the World Programme of Action concerning Disabled Persons. BMF builds upon this experience by introducing barrier-free and rights-based approaches. Participation is a basic human right framework, which is recognized in global conferences and summits of the United Nations and in the draft text of the comprehensive and integral international convention on protection and promotion of the rights and dignity of persons with disabilities. Human rights of persons with disabilities are widely recognized as less a concern of a social group with particular attributes but a prerequisite for advancing the rights of all. For disability-sensitive poverty alleviation, participation is both a means to address poverty and improve thereby well being and livelihoods of the many, and an end of poverty alleviation efforts. Participation ex-ante ensures that poverty alleviation efforts respond to the needs and concerns of intended beneficiaries; and participation ex-post helps to ensure equitable sharing of results achieved.

24

Strategic framework (4)

• Institutions

Capacity building for participatory and disability-sensitive poverty alleviation through technical cooperation will require multi-level institutional mechanisms (a) to plan, organize and deliver technical cooperation inputs, and (b) to receive and use these inputs by, for and with intended beneficiaries. Technical cooperation often involves new concepts, methods and procedures, so it is important that civil society organizations, including organizations of persons with disabilities, are involved in the analysis, planning, design and implementation of technical cooperation activities and their follow-up. Involvement of intended beneficiaries bring critical knowledge and experience to the design of technical cooperation, thus contributing to overall efficiency, and also builds project stakeholders, which contributes to sustainability.

25

Strategic framework (5)

• Resources

Local level and community-based institutions can make important resource contributions to technical cooperation activities, mainly in terms of skills, knowledge and contributed labour. However, resource capacities are finite, particularly in poor communities, so capacity building for participatory, disability-sensitive poverty alleviation must not present undue burdens on intended beneficiaries, whether this is in the form of in-kind contributions or cash co-payment of inputs. Poverty alleviation efforts must provide appropriate safety nets for intended beneficiaries and produce tangible results quickly and on a sustainable and predictable basis to encourage expanded project participation and replication to other areas and among other groups.

26

Strategic framework (6)

• Empowerment for full participation and equality

Mainstream technical cooperation is unlikely to contribute to increased participation, on the basis of equality, of persons with disabilities as development agents and beneficiaries unless there is parallel outreach, capacity building and institutional development among (1) staff of the concerned technical cooperation programmes and agencies and (2) staff at the implementation level at the time that capacity building is initiated among the intended set of project beneficiaries with disabilities.

Changes should include ways in which countries address technical cooperation – from external inputs related to global goals to national undertakings for national development purposes; ways in which development cooperation agencies and programmes plan and conduct technical cooperation activities – based on national ownership and expanded partnerships with civil society; and ways in which countries mobilize counterpart resources to finance technical cooperation activities – with the focus on valuation of technical cooperation at market rates.

27

Strategic framework (7)

• Monitoring and evaluation

Monitoring and evaluation of operational activities of development have long been a concern to the United Nations system, particularly as this pertains to simplification and harmonization of procedures and to ensure more effective and rapid dissemination of monitoring and evaluation findings to improve performance and strengthen national capacities.

Three issues are especially important in disability inclusive poverty alleviation:

1. how are persons with disabilities being involved in decisions on planning, design and execution of mainstream poverty alleviation-directed technical cooperation activities; and what has been the outcome of their participation to mainstream technical cooperation;
2. what benefits did persons with disabilities achieve from technical cooperation activities; how were they distributed; how were costs associated with production of project results apportioned and by whom were these borne; and what outcomes are associated with project results from the disability perspective; and
3. has there been project follow-up to date; if so, who was involved in the decision; is the project experience being generalized to a wider range of constituencies or geographical areas.

28

Empowerment and poverty alleviation

• Progress involves national commitment, partnerships with civil society, and regional and international cooperation and technical exchanges. Progress will be enhanced with the further elaboration and early adoption of the new international convention.
• Progress – and obstacles – should be documented and assessed for purposes of policies and plans. The experience gained is important to the process of monitoring implementation of BMF, its poverty alleviation target in particular
• Progress will be sustainable to the extent that action to alleviate poverty is inclusive, participatory and accountable to all

29

Final observations concerning empowerment and poverty alleviation

• 1. Development and poverty alleviation are not a zero-sum game
  • Growth in productive sectors provides means to further the social objectives of development
• 2. Macro-spatial development frameworks are as important as macro-social and macro-economic frameworks for sustainable and equitable poverty alleviation
  • Both policy coherence and territorial aspects are of utmost importance in addressing poverty alleviation, employment generation and social integration

30

Final observations concerning empowerment and poverty alleviation (2)

• 3. Integrated strategies and coherent policy frameworks result from “lean” rather than “complex” approaches:
  • Lean in terms of (a) policy design and decision making; (b) policy development and evaluation; and (c) policy implementation.
  • Getting to lean suggests quality, flexibility, time reduction and team work and allied reductions in levels of management and administration in an organization.
  • Getting to lean involves identifying and eliminating activities that do not add value, building capacities for multiple skills and team approaches to production and delivery of goods and services, and feedback and involvement of end-users.

31

Final observations concerning empowerment and poverty alleviation (3)

• 4. There is no one “model” of disability inclusive poverty alleviation but there are first principles to re-engineer poverty alleviation policies and programmes from the disability perspective
• Content: policy and programme designs need to address well being, livelihoods and participation.
  • Policies focusing solely on redistribution of services, income and wealth provide insufficient guidance in terms of shared vision or strategies to effect actions required.
  • Policy design must consider the “rules of the game” – for instance who decides; who pays; who benefits from proposed policies and programmes.

32

Final observations concerning empowerment and poverty alleviation (4)

• 4. Re-engineering, continued
• Constituencies: policies and programme designs must address both intended and unintended beneficiaries, particularly since poverty alleviation does not happen “at once” or in all areas simultaneously.
  • Comparative development studies suggest that participatory decision making ex-ante results in better designs, implementation and equity in sharing of benefits and sustainability ex-post.

33

Final observations concerning empowerment and poverty alleviation (5)

• 4. Re-engineering, continued
• Capacities: policy and programme designs need to address institutional capacity building in terms of multi-level frameworks, which correspond to decisions in terms of (a) policy-level priorities and direction, (b) plans and budget-level issues and (c) implementation and beneficiary involvement levels.
  • Multi-level approaches would also be reflected in self-evaluation of policy implementation and programme performance and outcomes.

34

Final observations concerning empowerment and poverty alleviation (6)

• 5. Sustained and equitable poverty alleviation requires accessible communications frameworks to inform, engage and obtain feedback on policy and programme designs, implementation and outcomes.
  • Communication is a basic right.
  • Communication frameworks must provide accessibility with reasonable adaptation
  • Accessible environments contribute to social inclusion and promote opportunities for the many to participate as agents and beneficiaries.

Return to top

Copyright (c) 2004 Vision Office.
Last updated 05/12/04. Contact: info @ visionoffice.com