by Venkatesh B

When the CBR approach was first introduced in the ’80s the socio political and economic environment was different from what obtains today. Let me share some of the manifestations of that change – and a radical change it is.

Some 30 weavers are reported to have committed suicide or died of starvation in the last one year in towns such as Hindupur, Mudirudupalli and Somandapalli near the village where I live. The once prosperous silk weaving region, where some 70,000 looms functioned in good old times, now has a mere 2,300 powerlooms. 4 looms can produce 2000 meters of cloth per day employing 2 weavers, thus each weaver produces 1000 meters a day – what takes 10 days on a traditional power loom. Thus the productivity is 10 times more but it also replaces hundreds and thousands of weavers . Unable to compete with the 2300 power looms, which were set up with the encouragement of the state, the handloom weavers now face starvation & death¹.

And this story is being repeated in other sectors as well – especially agriculture. Instances of farmers committing suicide are becoming common in my country. Many of these farmers have started growing hybrid seeds and the cost of farming has consequently increased enormously. Coupled with exacerbated weather conditions and increasing drought due to Climate Change, most of the small and marginal farmers who are dependent on dryland agriculture are driven into debt – and poverty.

The point is not to deny a place for newer technologies as they are developed and introduced; or to propose that efficient techniques and economies of scale have little relevance in developing economies; but to understand the processes that influence the choices made, and the manner in which these are introduced. Structural adjustment and liberalisation have brought untold suffering to the poor people in my country.

So in developing the matrix and guidelines for CBR we need to keep the current reality in mind. An even a bigger challenge is to address the issue of poverty in a holistic manner. One of the biggest challenges in developing these would be to address on how CBR guidelines can break through the constraints posed by structural adjustment & liberalisation.

An estimated 10 % of the world’s population – some 600 million people in the world experience some form of physical, mental or intellectual disability. It has been estimated that people with disability make up 20 % of the poor in developing countries. So we are talking about 120 million persons from among impoverished communities experiencing some form of disability!

It is common knowledge for all of us here that many of the causes of disability are preventable. Just to remind ourselves the preventable causes of disability are

• Malnutrition
• Lack of immunisation
• Unsafe drinking water
• Poor sanitation
• Lack of services for mother and child health
• Crowded living conditions
• Heavy work during advanced stages of pregnancy
• Constant exposure to hazardous chemicals
• Child marriage
• Consanguineous marriage

These ten factors are commonly found in poor communities in developing countries. Of course all of us know that these conditions exist for want of political will to direct adequate resources towards public services and creation of employment for the poor. Developing countries do not even spend 5 % of the total budget on health and education. This includes services for disabled people. LPG - Liberalisation, Privatisation and Globalisation - are pressurising our governments to spend even less.

So, in poorer countries, while on the one hand the resources for livelihood of poor people are under severe stress, on the other public services are increasingly being privatised. Such services include health, education, sanitation, provision of water, and so on. To add to this malady, health tourism has staged significant growth in my country, channelling already meagre resources of the people away from public health to providing cheaper services to the ailing from the richer countries. This shift transferring responsibility from the sate to the private sector is a direct consequence of structural adjustment and the so-called market economy.

While studies are conducted on the impact of structural adjustment and liberalisation on the poor, no specific study hitherto have been conducted on disability. One can only infer that the plight of disabled people will be worse off.

In the recent general election in my country, the resounding verdict of the people was that the state should be responsible for the delivery of such services to its citizens. Although the state has failed the poor in the last 57 years, still the people of my country choose the state in preference to the private sector - for obvious reasons. They fear that delivery of services will become even more inequitable.

For the last 17 years, I have been privileged to have had the opportunity to develop a methodology to encourage disabled people in poor communities to form themselves into cross-disability self-advocacy groups. Incidentally, this model caught the eye of a sensitive executive from the World Bank, and now a large programme on social mobilisation of disabled people has been designed and implemented by a World Bank funded project in 22 districts of Andhra Pradesh.

The self help group is the nucleus of the methodology I have developed, and not an add-on component. The add-on component concept is like a fifth wheel for a four-wheeled vehicle. By nucleus I mean disabled people of all age groups and of different types in villages form an association with a membership of about 15 people. Members of these associations identify their needs, plan and implement activities that meet their needs. The NGO is a facilitator of this process. These associations enable its members to meet their individual needs - rehabilitation, education, livelihood, etc. They also undertake a collective thrift and credit programme.

At the outset, the focus of facilitation has been to enable these associations to recognise that they exist not just to meet the needs of disabled people, but also to deal with issues related to the village as a whole. Finding solutions to the common issues of the village is as much part of the aim of these associations as meeting the disability needs of its members. There are innumerable examples of how these associations campaign for safe drinking water, better sanitation, housing, and so on. There have been instances of disabled people taking part in land struggles, alongside unions of agricultural labourers. Disabled people also contest elections to the local authority, and to the state and national Assemblies. I had the good fortune to recognise that disability issues cannot be addressed in isolation. The approach needs to be holistic, addressing all issues of poverty, which may or may not contribute directly to disability.

One indicator of the impact of this approach is that non-disabled members of the community frequently show a desire to join these associations. These make strong alliances with other groups of marginalised people like women, youth, and so on. Members of the groups support each other in their struggle for equity. The community development workers spend as much as 30-40% of their time working with non-disabled people to create awareness and to bring about behavioural change towards disabled people - to recognise that "the problem is not in my leg, but in your head".

After having worked in the corporate sector for 7 years, I have been wholly engaged with disability and development for the last 24 years. Whichever meeting I have attended - local, national, or international, I always find I am in a cocoon with similar beings – disabled people and the professionals who work with them. I say ‘cocoon’ because, as is the case with this gathering, we insulate ourselves from the outside world. We think, plan and implement campaign issues on disability and nothing else. We are so insulated, that we do cannot see that issues like structural adjustment, liberalisation, global warming etc have grave implications for us. We live in a world of our own.

The donor community has been nurturing us to live in this fool’s paradise, helping us to plan and implement a few quick-fix solutions. What is unforgivable for me is that the donor community has not brought its development acumen to influence stakeholders to have a broader perspective of oppression and inequity. This is probably because, like the disabled community, the donor community also does not identify disability as an issue of poverty, human rights and development. Therefore they take an approach that my teacher called a 3B syndrome - basket, brushes and brooms. As long as we do not recognise disability primarily as an issue of poverty, human rights and development, disabled people will be left languishing in neglect and poverty. The classic example this exclusion from a major development strategy is the omission of any mention of disability in the millennium development goals. I am reasonably certain this omission is on account of the inadequate engagement of disabled people in mainstream initiatives.

The other scenario useful to take stock of is that of DPO’s disabled people’s organisations. One of the things that we have managed is to contribute to the increase in the visibility of disability . We would have been more visible had we adeqautely engaged with mainstream development activism. Many of us in this room, I am sure, have not engaged in mainstream development activism..I would like to be proven wrong. We form ,at best , 10 % of the world’s population . Much of our problem is from the other 90 %. We need them more than they need us. This is one reason to be effectively engaged . Our strength is in our numbers : 10% is too small for us to be of any consequence as a vote bank : specially because we are not organised in countries like mine. The more we become visible and actively engaged in mainstream development issues the greater is the chance of disability getting on to the agenda of development strategy. Another major reason for such active engagement is to protect our environment and to protect the interest of poor people including poor disabled people.

Our recognition over the last 25 years that self determination is fundamental to our empowerment .

I thank WHO for giving me this opportunity to share my perspective, which is shared by some of my disabled friends and very many of my friends in mainstream development. The time has come for us to look beyond our make-believe world of quick-fix solutions, and join hands with other groups of oppressed people for equity and justice. This, I am afraid is the only way forward.

B.Venkatesh
Consultant & Trainer - Disability & Development
The Timbaktu Collective
C.K.Palli
Andhra Pradesh 515101
India

1. Weavers in a Quandary, Asha Krishnakumar, Frontline, October 22, 2004

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