Programme :
Presentation
Monitoring poverty alleviation among persons with disability
Presented by Clinton E. Rapley
Director of Planning Services
Associates for International Management Services
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
Monitoring poverty alleviation among persons with disability
Clinton E. Rapley – Director of Planning Services
Associates for International Management Services
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Presentation Agenda
- Poverty alleviation policy guidance:
- United Nations “Millennium Declaration”
- Biwako Millennium Framework
- Issues in monitoring poverty alleviation
- Self-evaluation and participatory poverty alleviation
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Poverty alleviation: as an international policy priority
- Poverty alleviation identified as key policy concern of United Nations
Millennium Assembly (6-8 September 2000).
- Data indicated many enjoyed better standards of living in the new
century. Since 1960s: (a) life expectancy in developing countries
increased from 46 to 64 years; (b) infant mortality rates declined by
one-half; (c) proportion of children enrolled in primary school increased
more than more than 80 per cent; and (d) doubling of access to safe
drinking water and basic sanitation.
- However, nearly half the world’s population [6 billion] exists on less
than US$2 per day; and approximately 1.2 billion people struggle on less
than US$1 per day.
- “Extreme poverty is an affront to our common humanity.“
Source: “We the peoples: the role of the United Nations
in the twenty-first century; report of the Secretary-General” (A/54/2000)
paragraph 70 <http://www.un.org/millennium/sg/report/index.html>.
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Poverty alleviation: international policy priority (2)
- Development goal 1 of UN Millennium Declaration:
“Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger”.
- Targets for development goal 1:
- Target 1: Halve, between 1990 and 2015, proportion of people whose
income is less than US$1 per day (Purchasing Power Parity).
- Target 2 : Halve, between 1990 and 2015, proportion of people who
suffer from hunger.
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Poverty alleviation: as a regional policy priority
- Biwako Millennium Framework (BMF) also identifies poverty
alleviation as a priority:
- BMF Priority area for action (g). Poverty alleviation through capacity
building, social security and livelihoods programmes.
BMF notes: “In the Asian and Pacific region, it is estimated that of the
400 million persons with disabilities, over 40 per cent are living in
poverty (paragraph 44)”.
- BMF Target 21. Governments should halve, between 1990 and 2015, the
proportion of persons with disabilities whose income/consumption is less
than US$1 per day.
Source: “Biwako Millennium Framework for Action towards
an Inclusive, Barrier-free and Rights-based Society for Persons with
Disabilities in Asia and the Pacific”
<http://www.unescap.org/esid/psis/disability/bmf/bmf.html>.
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Poverty alleviation: regional policy priority (2)
- BMF Target 21 is an income-based measure of poverty.
- ESCAP “Regional Workshop on Monitoring Implementation of BMF (Bangkok,
13-15 October 2004) identified an additional indicator on pre-conditions
for disability inclusive poverty alleviation:
“Yes/ No” measure for Governments that have adopted a poverty alleviation
strategy, whether the policy is disability inclusive.
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Issues in monitoring poverty alleviation
- What is an indicator?
- A group of statistical values, which may qualitative or
quantitative, that measure progress in achieving a goal or target.
- Indicators may be complex – summarize several variables, such as
UNDP’s Human Development Index; or simple – address a single variable,
such as adult literacy, or life expectancy at birth.
- Indicators should be:
- Clear, relevant and suitable to the required use and interpretation
- Simple and easy to calculate from data that are reliable, timely and
available
- Robust in their capacity to measure changes over time and between
observations
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Issues in monitoring poverty alleviation from the disability perspective
- Principal constraint is absence of consensus definition of disability
for purposes of international comparisons.
- Disability is a condition and not an attribute.
- World Programme of Action and Standard Rules used definitions of
disability based on the 1980 International Classification of Impairment,
Disability and Handicap (ICIDH) (WHO, Geneva):
- impairment: reduced function of an organ or body part;
- disability: reduced function and activity of a person; and
- handicap: social, economic and cultural circumstances that place
persons with impairment or disability at a disadvantage relative to
their peers.
- Criticisms of ICIDH focus on its association with “medical model” of
disability, which purports that disability is an absence of health.
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Issues in defining disability
- In response to criticisms of ICIDH, WHO began work on “ICIDH-2” – of
the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health
(WHO, 2001)
- ICF views disability and functioning as outcomes of interactions
between health conditions (diseases, disorders and injuries) and
contextual factors.
- Contextual factors include external environment factors and internal
personal factors
- Three levels of functioning: (a) body or body part, (b) whole person
or (c) person in a social context
- Disability involves dysfunctioning at one or more of these same
levels: impairments, activity limitations and participation restrictions
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Issues in defining disability (2)
- ICF provides a common conceptual framework and standardized concepts
and terminology for collection of data on disability and production of
statistics.
- However, ICF is not without critics and does not yet represent a
consensus definition on disability.
- Points raised about ICF include:
- ICF tends to link functioning and disability with health conditions
and contextual factors rather than a “social model” of disability.
- ICF environment variables require reorganization better to clarify
relationship between targeted provisions and specific environmental
components.
- ICF does not address “access” which is fundamental to realization of
full participation and equality.
- Proposed international convention on rights of persons with disability
includes a draft article on definitions (3), which includes proposed
definitions on “disability” and “persons with disability”.
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Issues in identification of indicators for purposes of BMF monitoring
- Indicators for monitoring BMF should (a) make maximum possible use of
existing socio-economic and demographic indicators and (b) indicate how to
reinforce disability perspective in existing data series.
- Why: BMF recognizes critical need to improve data and statistics and
for progress in a common system of defining disability – a precondition
for identifying indicators to monitor BMF implementation.
- BMF indicators initially would focus on outputs (immediate results of
achieving BMF targets) rather than outcomes (socio-economic and
socio-political changes resulting from BMF implementation).
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BMF Indicator Structure
- Core issues indicators: preconditions for implementing BMF – “Yes /
No” measure, which include:
- National constitution addresses rights of persons with disability.
- Appropriate legislative basis to promote and protect rights, dignity
and privacy of persons with disability.
- National policy adopted - or disability inclusive commitment in
mainstream policy – on advancement of persons with disability.
- Nation plan adopted on implementing BMF goals and targets.
- National coordination and consultation mechanism(s) exist.
- Norms and standards on environmental access, social services and
safety nets, and employment and livelihoods.
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BMF Indicator Structure (2)
- Qualitative and quantitative progress indicators for seven priority
areas of action
- BMF priority areas with qualitative targets:
1 – Self help organizations
2 – Women with disabilities
5 – Access to built environment
- Priority areas with quantitative targets:
3 – Early detection and education
4 – Training and employment
6 – Accessible ICT
7 – Poverty alleviation
- Indicator construction is limited by availability of global data and
statistics on disability BMF priority areas with quantifiable targets
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Issues in monitoring poverty alleviation
- BMF Target 21 and Development goal 1, target 1 of UN Millennium
Declaration both focus on monetary income approach to poverty.
- However, ESCAP studies on poverty in Asia and Pacific have identified
three other approaches to define poverty:
- Capabilities approach focuses on the ability to live a long, normal
life, function without chronic morbidity, be able to read, write,
calculate, move from place to place without assistance, and communicate.
- Social exclusion approach focuses on relations among groups - or
geographical areas – which affect opportunities to participate as
development agents and beneficiaries.
- Participatory approach focuses on the role of popular participation in
the determination of populations in poverty, in identification of actions
to address poverty, in contributing to implementation of agreed actions
and in sharing the benefits of those actions on the basis of equality.
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Self-evaluation and participatory poverty alleviation
- Monitoring progress in achieving BMF Target 21 will be constrained by
data on monetary income or expenditures disaggregated by disability
characteristic
- Self-evaluation of national plans on implementing BMF or of national
poverty alleviation programmes represents a means to obtain timely and
relevant data on quantitative BMF targets disaggregated by disability
- Self-evaluation can complement national survey programmes
- Self-evaluation can strengthen participant involvement and bring
detailed implementation level data on current status, performance and
results.
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Self-evaluation: basic issues
- Self-evaluation builds on basic concepts and principles of survey
research, programme planning and management, and information theory
- Self-evaluation could be at level of national action to implement BMF,
or targeted action for poverty alleviation.
- Monitoring is based on information flows that link inputs with
conversion factors – performance.
- Evaluation is based on information flows that link inputs with results
– evaluation of outputs, and outcomes among beneficiaries.
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Self-evaluation: decision points
- Decision point 1: identify the programme, its area of operations and
potential beneficiaries.
- Decision point 2: prepare logical programme framework to present goals
and targets with reference to means and timeframes for implementation.
- Decision point 3: specify information requirements – what to measure.
- Decision point 4: identify the sources of information – what to
measure and collect data.
- Decision point 5: decide on the research design – how to collect data
and analyze findings.
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Self-evaluation: decision points (2)
- Decision point 6: determine the time schedule for the applied research
/ community studies – when and how often to collect data in terms of
baseline, and restudies.
- Decision point 7: determine a communications and outreach strategy for
presentation of monitoring and evaluation findings – how to report
findings.
- Decision point 8: assign responsibilities for self-evaluation – who
supervises, who provides advice, who performs the actual monitoring and
evaluation tasks, and institutional structure for this work.
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Self-evaluation: implementing field studies
- Obtain political, administrative and participant understanding and
commitment for monitoring and evaluation
- Estimate costs and determine how (and by whom) these will be covered
- First, the baseline study to assess current conditions
- Step 1 – determine what to measure
- Step 2 – determine structure for monitoring and evaluation efforts
- Step 3 – determine the sample of “case studies” for data collection
- Step 4 – determine number of “interviews” per case study community
- Step 5 – design questionnaire for data collection, and tabulation plan
- Step 6 – conduct field work to collect data and pre-tabulate data
- Step 7 – analyze data, and present findings
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Self-evaluation: implementing field studies (2)
- Second, determine the schedule for restudies to measure and assess
progress as well as obstacles
- Programme restudies to complement the programme or work – do not
impose an evaluation burden on programme management or beneficiaries
- Select the set of “cases” for restudy
- Collect the restudy information
- Pre-tabulate to provide field-level feedback
- Analyze and interpret results and present findings
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Way ahead: capacity building for disability inclusive self evaluation
- Capacity building is most effectively accomplished with reference to
an established plan or programme
- Capacity building in the abstract will not yield insights required for
determination of what and how to measure, where and when this is done, and
communications strategy.
- Capacity building is best conducted as a “planning and management
workshop’ for selected plan / programme beneficiary and staff teams
- Planning workshops result in understanding of basic monitoring and
evaluation concepts, and would produce the basic monitoring and evaluation
framework
- Further elaboration of questionnaire design, sample and schedule of
baseline studies can be post-workshop tasks prior to field work to
conserve staff and beneficiary resources
- Reinforcement of the training experience is important for confidence
building as well as to elicit feedback from training participants
- Follow up training for restudies allows for phased approach to
capacity building, skill development and renewed confidence building
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Way ahead: “short list” of poverty alleviation indicators
- Monetary income approach to defining poverty: BMF Target 21 relates to
Development goal 1 of Millennium Declaration.
- MDG Indicator: percentage of population living on less than US1.00
(Purchasing Power Parity) per day. Data for monitoring Development goal
1 are compiled by World Bank from national statistical services and are
not disaggregated by disability.
- Monetary income measure of poverty among persons with disability
would likely be collected by sample survey, with measures disaggregated
by age, sex and urban-rural.
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Way ahead: “short list” of poverty alleviation indicators (2)
- Capabilities, Social exclusion, and Participatory approaches to
defining poverty can find guidance on measures in selected BMF priority
areas:
- Accessibility is fundamental to participatory and disability inclusive
poverty alleviation. BMF priority areas (e) and (f) discuss actions and
targets, including targets on ensuring freedom of expression for all.
- BMF priority area (c) – early detection provides guidance and targets
to build capacities of infants and children with disability for full
participation and equality.
- BMF priority area (d) – training and employments focus on capacity
building for employment and sustainable livelihoods among persons with
disability.
- BMF priority area (b) – women with disabilities discusses actions to
address exclusion and promote full and effective involvement of women with
disabilities in social life and development.
- BMF priority area (a) – self-help organizations considers
participation of civil society and organizations of / for persons with
disability in development decisions that affect their lives and well
being.
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