6. Disability and the new aid instruments

Introduction

For the last few years Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSP) together with associated aid instruments have been the main multi-lateral mechanisms for providing debt relief and, therefore, development aid, to the world's poorest countries. They also have a major influence on domestic economic and social policies as well as budgets. Unfortunately, disability issues have, on the whole, been ill served by these new procedures.

How to address this problem and move disability onto this new aid agenda was a primary concern of the first two reports produced under the Disability KaR Programme (Refs A2 and A3). Subsequently, it was identified as a major question by disabled people's organisations (DPOs) meeting at the Disability KaR Malawi roundtable. As a result, the Programme commissioned a special report on the participation of DPOs in the PRSP process in Uganda. Other Disability KaR studies looking at disability mainstreaming and gaps in research on disability and development also concerned themselves with this question from an international perspective.

The new aid instruments and their importance for disabled people

Since 1996 the World Bank and IMF have attempted to encourage economic strategies that give consideration to poor people, with a package of aid instruments that offer debt relief through budgetary support for the poorest countries. To be eligible a country needs to prepare a PRSP that sets out the polices it intends to follow in order to reduce poverty and foster economic development.

These papers are supposed to be drawn up through a process of engagement with civil society, as well as foreign donors, to become, in effect, a blueprint for a country's social and economic policies. It is for this reason that DPOs have recognised that unless they are included in the discussions and their views
taken seriously, disability will continue to be ignored. Furthermore, because disabled people make up a substantially disproportionate number of the poorest in any country, to be effective, poverty reduction strategies must include a clear disability perspective capable of being monitored.

Disability and PRSPs: the story so far

Most development agencies, including the World Bank, are officially committed to mainstreaming gender in their work. Nonetheless, the Disability KaR paper Mainstreaming disability in development: lessons from gender mainstreaming (Ref. C3) reported that like gender, disability has been sidelined in the new aid modalities. This is not a very hopeful sign for the inclusion of disability in the PRSP process.

The overall evidence to date, presented in Disability KaR's Research gap analysis report (Ref. D1), confirms this has been the case. While there has been some improvement since the first round of PRSPs, a World Bank report (2004) characterised the coverage of disability as limited and a '… patchwork of fragmented and uncoordinated interventions (World Bank, Disability and Development Team, Poverty reduction strategies: their importance for disability, July 2004). It was also apparent that most references to disability in PRSPs were about social protection rather than social inclusion.

The DPO representatives at the Disability KaR roundtable in Malawi observed that because of dependence on aid, their countries were obliged to concentrate on PRSPs, but that the DPOs did not have the necessary skills or resources to take part in the civil society consultations that are meant to underpin the process. Also, in Uganda, the one example where DPOs were able to participate, they had to fight other civil society organisations and the government for the privilege. This is all the more disheartening because Uganda has an extremely strong disability movement and, more then anywhere in the world, North or South, disabled people are officially integrated at all levels of the state.

DPOs and the PRSP process in Uganda

The most substantial piece of work on disability and PRSPs was that commissioned by Disability KaR on Uganda, looking at the participation of disabled people in the PRSP/PEAP process (Ref. B2). The commission came in direct response to what was learned at the Malawi roundtable and the request from DPOs to find out more and profit from the Ugandan experience.

The study closely follows how the National Union of Disabled Persons of Uganda (NUDIPU) engaged in the process. It is important to note that the Poverty Eradication Action Plan (PEAP), as the PRSP is called in Uganda, was the third such plan, but the first that had an input from disabled people. NUDIPU, supported by Action on Disability and Development (ADD) and the Danish Council of Organisations of Disabled People (DSI), put together a comprehensive submission, drawing on data relating to disability and poverty as well as consulting widely with DPOs in the country.

Besides limitations imposed by the lack of technical expertise, NUDIPU faced difficulties because of donor and government pressure to complete the PRSP quickly. 'As a result, the PEAP process, in which civil society had been meaningfully involved, became constricted into a six month PRSP process from which they found themselves, to some extent, squeezed out' (Ref. B2). It was also felt that the government was using DPO involvement as a way of legitimising the PRSP process, rather than out of any genuine interest in the rights or needs of disabled people.

The main lessons learned were that DPOs needed to be properly resourced to develop their technical capacity to a much higher level in order to make a real impact on the PRSP process. Also, more time and money were needed to inform and engage disabled people so as to lobby more effectively. Finally, in order to ensure the PRSPs were not simply filled with empty promises, cross-cutting disability indicators and performance benchmarks had to be put in place.

Conclusions

At present, governments in poor countries are desperate for aid and there is no commitment from them or donors to support DPOs or other civil society organisations (CSOs). As a result, PRSPs are in danger of becoming what some critics say they have always been - little more than the traditional exercise of World Bank/IMF structural adjustment hidden behind a façade of national and civil society ownership. Only by CSOs working together to exert pressure on
their governments can this be turned around.

Donors also have a role to play in making the democratic processes in PRSPs a reality. Disability KaR's initial mapping of disability initiatives at DFID (Ref. A3) observed that because an increasing proportion of aid was being channelled through the new instruments and these gave less scope for imposing conditions on developing countries, the prospects for mainstreaming disability were correspondingly limited. It was suggested that an example should be set to national governments by including DPOs in DFID's consultation processes and supporting them in building their capacity to represent the disabled constituency. This would encourage the creation of a legitimate space for dialogue and engagement in PRSPs/social programmes, and in turn would help disabled people lobby governments more effectively for their rights. The research carried out under the Disability KaR Programme, particularly research by and with DPOs in Africa, has provided well-grounded evidence to support this proposal and demonstrate in detail what is needed to put it into action.