World Bank Institute Launches First Disabilities Learning Program

Participants attend one of the presentations. Participation over-exceeded organizers expectations  by almost 50%.

WBI is the learning arm of the World Bank Group, and focuses on sharing knowledge and building capacity across the bank and with the global community.

Estimates to date put the number of people with disabilities at around 10 percent of the world's population - about 400 million of them living in developing countries.

But given that countries like the United States and Australia have reported disability rates closer to 20 percent of their population, Judith Heumann, World Bank's Advisor on Disability and Development, considers that the 10 percent figure is too low.

"It's become a more recent phenomenon over the last 30, 40 years that urban planners, being pushed by the disability community, are recognizing that in order to be effective urban planners, you must in fact take into consideration the needs of all populations of people," said Heumann during her presentation when addressing the participants at the course.

First course

The first course on disability issues, held in Guatemala last May, had a special emphasis on inclusive urban management, covering a wide range of topics: Poverty and violence reduction, urban transportation, financing issues, infrastructure, housing, land, and disaster risk among others. To meet disabled people's needs in all these urban management topics was the objective of this course.

Jesus Hernandez, advisor to the Costa Rican vice-minister on public security and one of the five blind participants at the course, takes notes in Braille.

Eight of the nine core modules of the WBI urban course were adapted to include issues related to disability in the urban context, without subtracting the essence of the course. For instance, "The role of cities" module - which normally covers the impact of decentralization, globalization and competitiveness - included in the session on civil participation, the special needs of people with disabilities in fostering their participation at the local level, as well as the practical problems of physical access to voting and to communications in print and other media.

The "Urban Transportation" module presented successful examples of mass transportation systems-including design, construction, and operation-so as to make them 100 percent accessible for persons with disabilities.  These success factors included wheelchair public elevators, handrails, ramps, smart cards, wheelchair securing belts on leaning and same-level buses, illuminated messaging inside the buses and stations for deaf users, and audio signals for the blind.

Dealing with inclusive urban management also meant introducing a module on "Universal Urban Design" as the set of guidelines to ensure that disabled people have better mobility and physical access, (an issue never addressed in the urban core course before).

Within this module, participants discussed the legislative process used to achieve accessible infrastructure, using as example the successful Peruvian case on how to set the grounds to develop an urban ordinance regulating urban design; A Brazilian project on zero-barriers environment provided the experience of built examples. The legal barriers to total inclusion included in current legislation were discussed by a leading human rights advocate on disability issues. The technical normalization support standards on disability issues were also presented, from the perspective of the International Organization for Standarization (ISO).

Five of the participants during one of the site visits, with Mr. Sergio Fernando Parade Higueros (in red), sign language interpreter during the event.

"In the position to influence Mayors and decision-makers about management inclusive of persons with disabilities, the course format provided grounds to discuss the disabilities dimension in a very comprehensive way" explained Ana Maria Carvajal, a World Bank Specialist who participated in the coordination of the event.

Of the 70 registered participants twelve represented the disability community (heads of NGOs and governmental institutions) and actively provided their input in all discussions. Ten of them traveled in from other countries. Air flight crews and lodging facilities were informed in advance about special needs of blind, deaf, and wheelchair users.  Accessibility to bathrooms and special room assistance services for participants with disabilities were coordinated on an individual basis.

WBI's local partner in Guatemala, the Universidad Rafael Landívar, consulted frequently with a blind consultant and local guest speaker regarding the venue requirements for participants. To ensure that information was to reach all participants, full-time "signing" for deaf participants was available, and videotaped presentations were collected in advance and sent for captioning and international signing services.

Conference

At the first Bank-sponsored conference on Disability and Development in December, 2002, the President of the World Bank, James D. Wolfensohn, challenged the institution and the international community to make substantial headway in including disabled persons in the development process. This Guatemalan inclusive urban management disabilities course proves the interest of WBI addressing this challenge.

"The disabilities issues enriched the contents of the course. As a permanent disabled person I can tell the quality of the course helps enhance quality of live for all. I shared all materials and experiences at work, and given the currency and applicability of all topics, we are already working on Costa Rican legislation pertinent to disabilities and urban management issues" said participant Jesus Hernandez, Disability advisor to the Ministry of Public Security of Costa Rica.

"It was a marvelous opportunity for international cooperation such as the one initiated during the event, and for sharing and receiving relevant opinions first hand," said Panamenian participant Carmen Bieberach, President of Fundación para la Igualdad de Oportunidades. "It was wonderful to see participants from all and each of the Central American countries working together; friendships that have been building from the experience are aimed at achieving accessible urban environments everywhere."