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Govts fail to address disability issues - study
Kholwani Nyathi, The Chronicle (Zimbabwe)
March 15, 2006

http://www.chronicle.co.zw/inside.aspx?sectid=2653&cat=1&livedate=3/15/2006

GOVERNMENTS and development agencies have failed to implement good policies aimed at mainstreaming disability in the development process, leaving the majority of disabled people marginalised in society, research carried out in several countries has revealed.

Presenting the findings of the Knowledge and Research (KaR) programme on disability at an international disability conference here yesterday, the leader of the research team, Mr Mark Harrison, said the study established that most of the countries that were surveyed had good policies on disability issues but failed to implement them.

"Governments and development agencies need to tackle the problem of policy implementation, which has meant that good policies on mainstreaming disability in development remain trapped on paper," Mr Harrison said.

"The research findings show that there is need to turn the policies into action."

Mr Harrison said his team had also established that most funds raised in the name of disabled people did not reach the intended beneficiaries.

The research programme carried out by the University of East Anglia in the United Kingdom and funded by the Overseas Development Group covered several countries in Africa and Asia.

The project described by the researchers as the "most ambitious, wide ranging and innovative project on disability and development ever carried out" was led and managed by disabled people from developed and developing countries.

Speaking at the same conference, the Southern Africa Federation of the Disabled chairperson, Mrs Rachel Kachaje, said the findings of the research programme were a reflection of the challenges facing disabled people in the region.

"For many years our Southern Africa Development Committee member states have been discussing plans and policies without success as no one has the political will to turn them into action," Mrs Kachaje said.

"Therefore there is need for us to move from this era of promises to action and more action. This can only be done if we get the appropriate information to turn our dreams into action."

Officially opening the threeday conference, the Malawi Deputy Minister of Education, Science and Technology, Mr Davie Ngulinga, said lack of information on the needs of disabled people was hampering their empowerment.

"In most countries especially the least developed, data is usually in short supply because of the lack of resources for the collection of information and its analysis," Mr Ngulinga said.

Mr Denis Caine, a representative of the UK Department of International Development (DFID), who commissioned the KaR programme said the world would never achieve the United Nations sponsored Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) until countries implement socially inclusive policies.

Representatives of the disability movement in Southern Africa, research institutions, journalists, political leaders, African Union specialised agencies, disability campaigners and Non Governmental Organisations are attending the conference.

The conference organised by SAFOD and the Federation of Disability Organisations in Malawi is meant to promote and disseminate the findings of the KaR programme carried between 2003 and last year to contribute to the empowerment of people with disabilities in Southern Africa.

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