Approximately five million Central Americans are disabled, in many cases from wounds received in the region's recent civil wars. Half are of working age, but most can't find jobs. They are the poorest of the poor.
The traditional approach to this problem has been to provide the disabled with charity. But participants at an IDB conference held in October in Washington, D.C., agreed that it makes much more sense to integrate the disabled into the economic mainstream so that they be an asset to their societies.
The number of Central Americans with disabilities is estimated at between 4.4 million and 5.8 million, according to a study carried out by the Toronto-based Canadian Association for Community Living, which was funded by the IDB and the Canadian International Development Agency. In fact, they number more than the total population of each of five of the seven countries studied. The study further shows that the numbers are growing.
Disabled persons have economic, social, and human potential that is still largely unrealized in Central America, said conference participants. IDB President Enrique V. Iglesias called for a new "social conscience" that would reject paternalism in favor of a resolve to treat disabled people as equals.
Paradoxically, the many specialized programs that attempt to segregate people with disabilities yield little or no return to society and are too costly to be sustained, according to the study.
The new study is the IDB's first step toward designing a strategy to help countries increase the participation of disabled persons in the work force. Among its recommendations are the following:
- Strengthen organizations that help disabled persons.- Develop a reliable, comparative data base.- Adopt a common approach for regional and national action.- Include issues that affect disabled people among the priorities of international and bilateral funding agencies.