March 2001

SEMINAR: DIALOGUE ON DEVELOPMENT AND INCLUSION: OPPORTUNITIES FOR PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES

IDB SUPPORTS DIALOGUE ON THE BENEFITS OF SOCIOECONOMIC MAINSTREAMING OF THE DISABLED

Innovative policies and projects demonstrate opportunities to improve access

Ten percent of the population in Latin America has some form of disability, with the percentage rising to up to 20% in areas that have endured wars, such as Central America. For economic as well as social and humanitarian reasons, it is crucial that these people, who are generally marginalized, be offered opportunities for development so that society can benefit from their potential contribution.

Political, social, economic, and cultural conditions have generated the false notion that the disabled are inevitably a burden on society and that they cannot contribute to it. Paradoxically, in many cases, special education and social programs perpetuate segregation and dependence when they are conducted under the assumption that mainstreaming the disabled into the workforce is too costly to be sustainable.

However, development projects and international financial support can open up opportunities that may be sustainable in the long term by focusing efforts on establishing conditions that will encourage and make it easier for people with disabilities to participate.

The Inter-American Development Bank has therefore proposed a dialogue with political and community leaders, experts, the business community, and media representatives, to be launched on March 16 at the Teatro Teletón in Santiago, Chile, on the occasion of the annual meeting of the Boards of Governors of the IDB and the Inter-American Investment Corporation.

"Development programs in such areas as infrastructure, city planning, housing, transportation, information technology, and education and training offer key opportunities to address access for the disabled," noted Mayra Buvinic, chief of the Social Development Division of the IDB.

"Disability should be a public policy issue about mainstreaming this population in education and the labor market," said Buvinic. "We therefore need specific, accurate census data on the disabled. It is also important to note that the countries can gain major benefits by expanding opportunities for the disabled but incur high costs if they don’t," she added.

The purpose of the initiative for the "Dialogue on Development and Inclusion: Opportunities for People with Disabilities" is to increase awareness of how important social mainstreaming of the disabled is to development in the region, through the dissemination of new studies and reports on the magnitude of the problem and the identification of best policies and projects.

The dialogue will also help broaden the historic paradigm of providing charity and humanitarian assistance to the disabled to include investing in them, highlighting the valuable contribution they can make to development in the region if they participate fully in economic activity and improve their quality of life.

The dialogue sessions will be cosponsored by Teletón-Rehabilitación Infantil, an organization established in 1978 by popular Chilean television show host Don Francisco, who has helped rehabilitate

thousands of disabled children with neuromusculoskeletal disorders. The initiative has been extended to 10 other countries. During the meeting, the participating countries will introduce the Organización Internacional de Teletón (International Telethon Organization) for a joint project.

Other IDB initiatives

Other IDB-sponsored activities for the disabled include a study financed jointly with the Canadian International Development Agency in 1997 on the social and economic costs of not mainstreaming the disabled into active life in Central America. The study identified projects to mainstream the disabled into the production system as a development strategy.

Some five million people with disabilities - many of them war victims - live in Central America, and are strongly represented among the most marginalized, impoverished segments of society. They are excluded from the labor market, even though approximately half of them are of working age. Social indicators in 1997 showed that the disability rate was on the rise.

There are five other ongoing IDB projects for the disabled: a Multilateral Investment Fund project to support an employment program for the blind in Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay; two regional programs for training and job placement for the disabled in Central America and the Caribbean; a program to support the development of organizations for the disabled in the Caribbean; and an occupational training program for disabled youth in Chile.

The Instituto Psicopedagógico de Nivelación Aranguren of Argentina received a grant for a literary contest for disabled children in 1997. It also recently established an institute for advocacy and training for mentally and physically disabled children, with financing from the IDB.

The dialogue on the disabled launched by the IDB and cosponsored by the Governments of Canada and Finland is consistent with the efforts by the IDB and Latin America to promote social inclusion leading up to the United Nations World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia, and Related Intolerance, to be held in South Africa in August 2001.