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Disability in "Development"

Madhu Pokhrel
PO, MS-Nepal

With a view to addressing the needs of the disabled as an integral part of community development, MS Nepal has included “Disability” in its Policy Paper 1999-2004 as one of the underlying principles of MS programme in Nepal.

Over the past five years MS Nepal has had a large number of its Development Workers (DWs) placed in the Basic and Primary Education Programme, which directly focus on disability issues. This is a huge human resource investment. The knowledge, experience and endowment of this work should not be lost but utilised by MS Nepal as a whole. Considering the guiding philosophy of the MS family, it is apparent that the disabled people’s movement and community-based initiatives should be acknowledged and supported by MS Nepal.

Disability strikes at the very heart of development and relevance at every level of MS’s activities: it is about human rights, promoting equal opportunities, and fighting economic, social and educational deprivation. Ninety percent of disabled people living in developing countries have no access to any form of support. There is a clear need for input. In Nepal it is estimated that 4.5% of the population are moderately or severely disabled. With the average family size being 6.6 this would mean that 30% of the population are directly affected, either themselves or via a family member.

Poverty, the spread of infectious diseases and vitamin deficiencies are basically the causes of disability. Lack of access to primary health services, lack of resources and access to basic information on how to care and support disabled children/people also result in further disabilities. Likewise, advanced technologies are also causing disabilities, albeit indirectly. Toxic waste and pollution, the use of hazardous chemicals and drugs, increased traffic accidents that entails growing urbanisation, work related accidents in industries, general environment deterioration and modern warfare can be cited as some of the examples in this regard. While the gaps between rich and poor, powerful and powerless widen, the pressure to be “fit, bright, young, and attractive” also increases, and so will disability. Poverty will increase the practical incidents of disabilities, while the social pressure to adhere to idealistic stereotypes will automatically exclude more people. On world scale, while some causes of disability are being addressed through better health and education access, others are increasing.

Disability is described as having functional/partial problems in doing day to day activities. Examples are problems in work, school, moving from place to place, dressing, eating etc. The person is not able to do, or has difficulty to do the things that someone of his/her age would normally do in that culture. The cause of these is the physical or mental impairment.

- “One in Ten”. According to WHO there is an estimated 10% of the world’s population disabled.

- Of these 80% are living in developing countries.

- It is predicted that the numbers of disabled peopled will increase by 137% in less developed countries, and by 48% in more developed countries over the next three decades.

A Disability Working Group consisting of two Development Workers working in the area of disability and a Programme Officer as a co-ordinator, representing the Country Office was formed to develop an action plan and to co-ordinate the process of integration of disability as the cross cutting issue into MS Nepal’s programme. The group has made the action plan for 2000, and the plan was discussed and approved by the Policy Advisory Board (PAB) meeting held in February 2000. Initially, the group collected a lot of information materials on disability issues and updated the MS Nepal’s library, organised meetings with some INGOs in Nepal i.e. Action Aid Nepal, Save the Children UK and Handicap International.

Considering the capacity of MS Nepal i.e. a broad knowledge and broad engagement in development issues, a two-day workshop was organised in March for Country Office staff. A three-day training workshop for partners and DWs was also organised in close co-operation with Handicap International, CDD Bangladesh and CBRS Pokhara in April to share experiences among the participants on how to integrate disability in the mainstream of development activity.

The training workshops were highly instrumental in integrating disability into the ongoing MS Partnership activities as quite a comprehensive action plan was developed by the partner representatives in course of the workshop itself. Meanwhile MS Nepal contributed to the production of a video film “Arko Ujyalo” (another light) on a blind child in close collaboration with the Ministry of Education, BPEP/DANIDA. The video was screened on national television. It was very much appreciated by the sectors concerned. Partners contributed a lot of articles on disabilities to the Wall Newspapers published by MS Nepal. A special issue of MS Nepal magazine focusing on ‘Disability’ is also in the pipeline.

MS Nepal has already set the stage to address the needs of the disabled as a cross cutting issue by emphasising the integration of a disability perspective into all of its work to ensure that the disabled are not left out of the development mainstream. Efforts are being made to make the MS staff, DWs and Partner Organisations aware about disability issues so that they can fight discrimination and marginalisation of disabled people in their work. When MS seeks partners who focus directly on disability issues it makes it sure that such partners are really committed to working for the empowerment of the disabled and their families through a community rehabilitation approach. Integration of disability into the MS partnerships will initially take some resources both human and economic but these will be minimal. MS Nepal seeks expertise knowledge from the National Network organisation on Disability in Nepal, and other organisations within the region with experience in disability issues. The emphasis is on facilitating and training existing MS partner organisations to include disability as a focus issue in their regular work and not on setting up separate organisations or projects to deal with disabilities.

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