In Washington, the World Bank hosted a conference on Disability and Development, which focused on how preventing disability and integrating the already disabled persons into mainstream society is central to dealing with poverty.

There are nearly 500 million disabled people in the world, 80 percent of them living in developing countries. Often considered a burden on the community, disabled persons are regularly shunned, isolated and stigmatized by their societies. Since they are kept from attending school or finding work, they also tend to be among the poorest of the poor, especially women and children.

"The challenge is to help disabled people lead a normal life, provide them with an opportunity to work, to become self-sufficient and contribute to their community," said World Bank President James D. Wolfensohn. "This brings benefits to the disabled individual, family, community, society and economy."

Creating opportunities to integrate disabled persons into mainstream society could be easily achieved through constructing accessible infrastructure, which would provide the disabled with access to education and employment.

Wolfensohn said that while over the last few years the World Bank has started to incorporate disability considerations into project design, he noted that thinking about the needs of disabled persons doesn’t come naturally to the international community.

"Disability issues should not be a gloss to our agenda of poverty reduction, but a central part of it," Wolfensohn said.

Education is considered a key element in fighting poverty, offering future generations a hope of better life, yet few disabled children in developing world attend school. The figure is even less for girls.

"Education is dramatically lower for disabled children in poor countries, where only 2-3 percent of the children are in school," said Bengt Lindqvist, UN Special Rapporteur on Disability.

"Families hide disabled children, and exclude them from family and community activities, including income generating measures."

Yet without enabling the disabled children to attend school, it will be difficult to imagine how the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goal of providing every girl and boy with a complete primary school education by 2015 can be achieved, Lindqvist concluded.

"Poverty causes disability, and disability leads to poverty," Lindqvist pointed out, explaining that while the number of disabled persons is frequently underreported in statistics, the incidence of disability in poverty stricken population is high.

Queen Noor of Jordan, who chairs the Landmine Survivors Network, talked about the horror landmines leave behind. They breed despair long after the war has ended, maiming people and causing fertile fields to lay uncultivated.

"Somebody steps on a mine every 22 minutes," Queen Noor said, pointing out that each dollar spent on clearing minefields yields $4.60 in economic returns.

Whether human or economic, "wasted potential caused by landmines is hard to quantify," she added.US Senator Edward Kennedy also addressed the conference and summarized the progress and achievements the United States has made over the last few decades to successfully include disabled persons into society.

"Some suggest that raising the standards of living for the disabled must wait, while developing nations first raise those standards for the mainstream of their nations," US Senator Kennedy said.

"I urge you to oppose that view. An economic development plan that reduces poverty for all is the right policy. Nations should invest in education and infrastructure improvements for every citizen, regardless of the barriers they face."

Useful Links: Click here to read Jim Wolfensohn’s op-ed on disability which appeared in the Washington Post on Tuesday. Videos of conference available here.

Videos of Conference 

Left to Right: US Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Judith E. Heumann, World Bank Disability Advisor; James D. Wolfensohn, World Bank President at the World Bank Conference on Disability and Development on December 3rd

Left to right: Josef Ritzen, World Bank Vice President, Human Development Network; Judith E. Heumann, World Bank Disability Advisor; Robert Holzmann, World Bank Director, Social Protection

US Senator Edward M. Kennedy and Judith E. Heumann, World Bank Disability Advisor at the end of the conference

H.M. Queen Noor of Jordan, Patron & Honorary Chair, Landmine Survivors Network

Participants of the World Bank Conference entitled: Disability and Development held on 12-3-2002 listen to presentations made by several key panelists

James D. Wolfensohn (Center) greets audience. Bengt Lindqvist, UN Special Rapporteur on Disability (seated far left)

Left: Kalle Könkkölä, Department for International Development Cooperation of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Finland (FINNIDA); right: Yutaka Takamine, Social Affairs Officer, United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP)