Poverty and Disability

About 80 % of the disabled population lives in the poorest countries in the world. Poverty is a major factor leading to disabling living conditions. Disability, in turn, leads too often to poverty and exclusion of the person and the whole family. Disabled persons are the poorest of the poor in the society. It is therefore vital to study closely these mutually reinforcing interrelationships and to integrate disability issues into all poverty reduction programmes.

Poor people, including disabled people, do not have access to healthy food, clean drinking water, adequate health care and safe living environment. Conditions create the sickness (impairment) that could be prevented when resources are available. Poverty includes limited resources in any other areas of life, increasing the burden of whole life. Underlying causes of disability are:

• malnutrition
• communicable diseases
• poor water and sanitation system
• limited access to health services
• inadequate reproductive health services
• illiteracy
• traffic accidents
• land mines
• house hold and other accidents

Exclusion leads disabled people to fall further into chronic poverty with little opportunity of breaking out of the cycle. When the main family breadwinner becomes disabled, the whole household risks sliding more deeply into poverty. Removing barriers and enabling disabled people to contribute could help reduce poverty in the whole community. Conversely, without their inclusion, sustainable poverty reduction for the whole community will be unachievable.

Prevention of disability requires attention to be paid to many components poverty may be linked with. Elements in development programmes and projects which can contribute to prevention of causes of disability include:

• Improve nutrition (agricultural development)
• Control communicable diseases (water and sanitation)
• Improve health care (health services and facilities, child and mother health)
• Improve basic education and literacy
• Improve road safety
• Support mine clearing of land mines
• Prevent accidents in the home (community education)
• Improve occupational health

	Water supply project in Zambia; Accessible and reachable also for disabled people
	Vaccination and health care project; Improved facilities of basic health care, vaccination and information, including all members of the society, disabled persons and their families too.
	Empowerment of disabled women project; Information on Human rights, reproductive health and HIV/AIDS, to strengthen the quality of life and self-confidence of disabled women.