Thousands of people with disabilities in Southern Africa are excluded from the national development agenda because little is known about their situation, especially on poverty. (Pictured: Some of Zimbabwe's top disabled rights campaigners who recently attended a SAFOD capaci
An investigation by Shuaib Chalken, Kedibone Seutloadi and Safoora Sadek from Diabalwa Professional Services has revealed that the situation of people with disabilities is as a result of poor research evidence on their needs. The study reviewed 79 research and policy documents on disability issues. The independent literature review of academic research on disability and poverty issues undertaken in the last 15 years in the Southern African region, called for investment in research focusing on best practice models and approaches on disability and the active participation of people with disabilities in the research activities.
The purpose of the review was to increase Southern Africa Federation of the Disabled (SAFOD)’s existing resource and knowledge base on disability and poverty issues in the Southern African Region. It was also aimed at assisting SAFOD identifying future opportunities for disability and poverty policy targeted research and enhances the Federation’s perspective during its advocacy campaigns and helps improve policy advice capacity. Spurred by the need to present an accurate picture on the conditions and needs of people with disabilities in Southern Africa, disabled people’s organisations are focusing on research to inform policies and programmes as well as assess impact. Such baseline data is increasingly proving valuable in developing new and appropriate lobbying strategies for the inclusion of people with disabilities in the social and economic spheres of society.
Furthermore, the evidence forces governments in Southern Africa to implement MDG commitments and the objectives of the recently adopted UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Authors of the review said there was overwhelming agreement of a close and bidirectional relationship between disability and poverty. This is demonstrated in previous research conducted in all SAFOD countries. What was missing in the reviewed literature was research closely documenting how the relationships between disability and poverty work and possibilities of intervention.
There are no large scale evaluated intervention projects which have attempted to break the disability poverty cycle. The poverty disability link had not been translated into information that can guide future programming on disability in Southern Africa.
The review was commissioned by SAFOD in 10 member countries. While current research provided a broad picture of the impact of the political and socio-economic contexts of developing countries on the full inclusion of people with disabilities, it lacked the depth to trigger changes in disability policy and programming.
Disability has not been adopted as a cross cutting issue. The lack of commitment and execution was blamed for the failure of disability mainstreaming to deliver changes in the livelihoods of people with disabilities. However the review noted that disability research has highly potential to make an impact in countries where disability friendly policies existed, such as Uganda and South Africa.
The review highlighted the insufficient research by disability experts from African and the Southern African region, with South Africa dominating the regional research output. Furthermore, the review found that existing research did not focus on solutions and there was inadequate inclusion of disability in poverty reduction policies, strategies and programmes. Besides, the implementation of policy to change the lives of people with disabilities was limited.
SAFOD should consider establishing a team or a network of such disability experts that can partner with experts from northern or developed countries to enrich the content of the research by combining technical and theoretical expertise with on-the-ground political, social and economic development expertise that exists at a national level.
People with disabilities can determine the research agenda and its outputs if they are involved at participative and conceptual level of research. Besides, the review identified gaps in the current literature, which specifically cited the needs of the elderly, women, the youth and children with disabilities to inform development policies.
In addition, rigorous research into the education needs of students with disabilities and assess how inclusionary practices will impact the general classroom atmosphere was needed. Education is the one area that champions the principle of inclusivity, integration and mainstreaming of people with disabilities and is linked to employment opportunities. The participation of people with disabilities in entreneurship, which was the focus of 32 documents reviewed, remained undocumented and under-researched.
The documentation on education can thus be utilised to play the additional role of providing information and models for planning, budgeting and implementing mainstreaming and for promoting education and training for the disabled. Botswana’s policy of inclusive education – though with room for improvement – was cited a best practise.
As a way forward in closing the gap between disability and poverty, there was need to include people with disabilities in all research sages. This would improve impact on policy. Furthermore, there was need for research that provided in-depth information on the disabled fact of poverty.
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