A Basic Manual for Inclusive

Development

INCLUSIVE DEVEOPMENT FOR

WELL- BEEING OF ALL

Written by: Luis Fernando Astorga Gatjens;Inter-American Institute on Disabilities and Inclusive Development (IIDI)

Drawings: Francisco Torres

Production coordination and editing: Sanna Laitamo, Handicap International (HI),Central America Program

Focal group participants:

Nicaragua: Alma Nubia Baltodano, Thalia Dixon, Perla Garcia, Karla Madrigal,Marcos Méndez, Dennis Molina, Maria Felix Morán, Maria Eugenia Picado, OlgaMaria Ruiz, Rosa Salgado and Plácida Sánchez.

Costa Rica: Teodoro Bermúdez Valencia, Irene Coen, Julie Chan Jiménez, GabrielaChaverri, Jesús Hernández, Katia Marín, Madeline Matarrita, Leonardo Rodríguez,Leonardo Segura and Francisco Villalta.

Managua, Nicaragua, February 2007

This manual may be reproduced in part or in its entirety for pedagogic purposes, as long as the original source is cited.

For more information, please contact: Handicap International: discapacidad@handicap-international-ac.orgTel: (505) 2266-1364 / 2266-8419 or the Inter-American Institute on Disabilities and In-clusive Development: luferag@ice.co.cr Tel. (506) 2253 7562

Nicaragua2009

A Basic Manual for Inclusive

Development

1

FORWARD...................................................................................................................................5

CHAPTER I: “FROM PATIENT TO CITIZEN”: CHANGING THE APPROACH TO DISABILITIES…........................................................................................................8

1. A brief history of disability paradigms…………………………...........................................8 a. The traditional paradigm or model...............................................................................9

b. The biological or medical paradigm..............................................................................10 c. The human rights paradigm.........................................................................................122. Shaking things up and changing them...........................................................................16

Questions for evaluation and reflection/ Chapter I…….......………………………………..17

CHAPTER II: WHAT ARE HUMAN RIGHTS?................,,,,,,,........................................................18

1. Definition and features of human rights..........................................................................182. Types of human rights…………..…....................................................................................19

a.Civil and political rights……...........................................................................................19 b.Economic, social and cultural rights….........................................................................21 c.Third-generation rights…….............................................................................................21

3. What are the rights of a disabled person?.....................................................................224. What are human rights violations?..................................................................................23

a.A human rights violation.................................................................................................23 b.When are the rights of people with disabilities being violated?................................24

.

CONTENTSCONTENTS

5. The interdependence of rights of people with disabilities...............................................26 6. Human rights and the type of environment.......................................................................27

Questions for evaluation and reflection/ Chapter II…..........................................................29

CHAPTER III: EXCLUSION, INCLUSION AND POVERTY LINKED TO DISABILITY.............................30

1. What are exclusion and inclusion?......................................................................................30 2. What is poverty?....................................................................................................................31 3. Poverty and social participation.........................................................................................33 4. Disabilities and additional expenses...................................................................................34 5. Exclusion of people with disabilities.....................................................................................36 6. A diagnostic appraisal..........................................................................................................38

Questions for evaluation and reflection/ Chapter III.............................................................40

CHAPTER IV: INCLUSIVE DEVELOPMENT........................................................................................41

1. Development models...........................................................................................................412. Sustainable human development......................................................................................423. In relation to disability...........................................................................................................434. Inclusive development.........................................................................................................455. How can the vicious circle be broken?.............................................................................50

a. Building capacities and creating opportunities.............................................................50 b. Social security programs...................................................................................................51

6. The relationship between human rights and inclusive development............................51 7. Instruments and spaces for inclusive action......................................................................52 a. The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.............................................52

b. The UN Millennium Development Goals.........................................................................53 c. The Decade of the Americas for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.....................54 d. Other important arenas....................................................................................................54

Questions for evaluation and reflection/ Chapter IV…........................................................56

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CONTENTSCONTENTS

CHAPTER V: POLITICAL ADVOCACY AND THE RIGHTS OF PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES.............................................................................................................57

1. Political advocacy as a tool for change........................................................................572. What is advocacy?...........................................................................................................593. Differences between advocacy and political advocacy...........................................614. Planning political advocacy: the eight steps of the process.......................................64

Step 1. Identify and analyze the problem......................................................................65 Step 2. Formulate the proposal........................................................................................68

Step 3. Analyze the decision-making space..................................................................69 Step 4. Analyze channels of influence (power mapping)............................................70

Step 5. Do a SWOT analysis...............................................................................................72 Step 6. Design advocacy strategies................................................................................76

Step 7. Develop an activity plan......................................................................................83Step 8. Continuous evaluation.........................................................................................92

Questions for evaluation and reflection/ Chapter V........................................................96

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CONTENTSCONTENTS

CHAPTER VI: POLITICAL ADVOCACY TO PROMOTE PUBLIC POLICIES FOR INCLUSIVE DEVELOPMENT..........................................................................................................................97

1. What are public policies?.................................................................................................................97 a. Definition.........................................................................................................................................97 b. How are public policies made?.................................................................................................100

2. Steps for drafting and implementing a public policy..................................................................1033. What should be done to promote inclusive development?......................................................105

Questions for evaluation and reflection/ Chapter VI.......................................................................107

BIBLIOGRAPHY.............................................................................................................................................108

4

CONTENTSCONTENTS

5

FOREWORDFOREWORDForeword

We are very pleased to present the second edition of A Basic Manual for Inclusive Deve-lopment. This manual was designed for leaders of organizations of disabled persons, and for other individuals and social organizations that are interested in the issue of inclusive development in Central America.

Our hope is that this manual will be used as a training resource, to help generate a better understanding of the meaning of inclusive development—both its theoretical and prac-tical underpinnings—and how such an approach can be used in different development settings. We also hope it will provide a useful tool for designing and planning lobbying and advocacy actions.

This initiative grew out of a training process about this topic that was developed in Nicara-gua, whose main beneficiaries have been the leaders of organizations of disabled persons in this country. The process has been promoted and supported by the World Bank (WB) and implemented by Handicap International (HI).

Following this training process, Handicap International decided to produce this manual for pedagogic purposes, which we hope will assist organizations when they are training other leaders and members of organizations of people with disabilities, or any other interested group or individual. Although this effort began in Nicaragua, the manual is equally useful for training purposes in the rest of Central America.

The topic of inclusive development is very much linked to the topic of human rights, and we believe that the best way to effectively comply with the rights of disabled people is through adopting development practices that are guided by an inclusive development approach. In today’s world, we already have a very valuable tool for promoting inclusive development: the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. We are convinced that these two issues can only gain ground through effective advocacy efforts on the part of organizations of people with disabilities and other allied groups, aimed at building or modifying the corresponding public policies, plans, programs, projects and actions.

The manual’s content is organized into a series of topics that follow a certain develop-mental logic. There are six chapters, and we recommend that they be read in the same sequence

in which they are presented. However, the chapters also have their own integrity as sepa-rate units, and each of them can therefore be used independently. This second edition, which is being published in English for the first time, has been revised to include an impor-tant chapter that was not contained in the original version. This is Chapter V, which covers political advocacy and lobbying.

The learning objectives of each thematic unit are presented at the beginning of each chapter. At the end of each chapter, we include questions and ideas for exercises that can be used to verify how well the content has been understood and assimilated, or to stimulate group discussions and further explore and consider each theme.

It is important to point out that we have utilized illustrations (drawings, diagrams and ta-bles) to make the manual’s content more amenable to being easily read and understood. When using this guide in workshops, seminars, schools, etc., each organization or trainer can create their own methodological approach, adapting it to the target public studying the manual and making any necessary adjustments required. We are aware that there are more exhaustive guides and books about the topics of human rights, the Convention, and political advocacy work, and we encourage you to seek them out to complement this text.

This manual will be published in a print version in English, and will also be available in a di-gitalized version to make it accessible to the blind.

The manual may be freely reproduced as long as the original source and edition are ci-ted. The manual’s overall production was coordinated by Sanna Laitamo from HI, and its technical content was overseen by Luis Fernando Astorga Gatjens from the Inter-Ameri-can Institute On Disabilities and Inclusive Development (IIDI), who also wrote the manual.

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To obtain input for the manual—both its form and content—from the viewpoint of people who would possibly be using it in the future, two focal groups were organized, one in Ni-caragua and the other in Costa Rica. These groups made important observations and contributions, most of which were incorporated into the manual’s final text. We would like to thank all of those who participated in this effort for their valuable contributions.

We hope you will find the manual useful, and that it will help you to multiply the kinds of practices that can build, in a sustained manner, a fairer and more inclusive Central Ame-rica!

Managua, Nicaragua, November 10, 2009

Emmanuelle Rioufol, Luis Fernando Astorga Gatjens, Program Director Executive Director/San José Office, Handicap International Inter-American Institute on Disabilities Central America Program and Inclusive Development (IIDI)

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Chapter I “From patient to citizen”: Changing the approach to disabilities

After concluding this chapter, the reader should be able to distinguish between the di-fferent ways our societies approach disabilities, and how some tend to perpetuate discri-mination and exclude people with disabilities, while others try to overcome and resolve these problems.

- People with disabilities have been discriminated against and excluded by different hu-man societies throughout history. The disabled have been viewed as inferior, and as dependent upon their families, charity and state assistance.

- In practice, even today, most societies—including those of the Central American re-gion—do not consider people with disabilities as citizens.

1. A brief history of disability paradigms

What is a paradigm?

A paradigm is a model or example that serves as a norm. Here’s a simple example that can help us grasp the idea of a paradigm. Everybody has seen the metal molds that are used by bakeries to bake bread in a square form. Well, this metal mold insures that all of the bread that is baked in it has the same shape. Something similar occurs with a society’s ideas. “Molds” or paradigms are constructed from the ideas that are passed down from generation to generation. We could also define a paradigm as a group of beliefs that provide a frame of reference for behaving in certain ways.

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CHAPTER ICHAPTER I

Throughout history, people with disabilities have been seen and trea-ted differently than people who don’t have disabilities. Different writers agree that there are three basic paradigms that reflect the way that people with disabilities have been viewed.

The so-called traditional paradigm or model predominated during the longest period of history, and was then followed by the biological pa-radigm (which is associated with a medical or rehabilitative approach). Currently, a third conception has been gaining ground, which is the hu-man rights and social development paradigm.

Let’s take a closer look at each of these:

a. The traditional paradigm or model

The traditional paradigm is associated with a viewpoint that sees and treats people with disabilities as inferior. Or stated in another way, people are looked down upon because of their disability. They are not conside-red “normal,” but instead as incapable of doing things like other people. According to this paradigm, people with disabilities are situated among those who are considered strange or abnormal, from the time they are born until they die. They are viewed as dependent on the charity of others.

Often, those who see disabilities from this perspective associate deficien-cies with divine punishment or intervention. Some societies that held this traditional view of disabilities simply eliminated people whose condition made adaptation difficult. This was common in Sparta or Rome, almost two thousand years ago.

This paradigm has exited since ancient times, and is still very present in our societies, although it co-exists with the biological paradigm and the more recent human rights paradigm that has begun to emerge.

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To avoid your suffering, we better get rid of you.

According to this traditional paradigm, people with disabilities are considered objects of pity rather than people with rights or who are entitled to rights. This conception gave rise to different derogatory names for people with disabili-ties: invalid, crippled, paralytic, “blindie,” “deafie,” mongoloid, moron, crazy, stupid, exceptional, special, etc. All of these imply “poor

thing.” This approach tends to infantilize the disabled, or characterize them as children even when they are adults. Even today, when they realize that their child has been born with some type of deficiency, parents ask themselves:

• “What did we do wrong?” • “What did we do to deserve this?” • “What are we paying for?” • Or some other similar question, rather than seeing that their child’s con-dition has a scientific explanation, and that they will need to work hard to make sure that this quality does not limit their child’s development and inclu-sion within society.

This is the legacy of the traditional paradigm in our society today.

b. The biological or medical paradigm The biological paradigm centers the problem in the person with the deficien-cies or limitations. To overcome the patient’s functional limitations, a range of professionals and specialists offer the person various services and treatments. This approach sees the person as a passive recipient of institutional support. Specialized clinics and rehabilitation centers usually provide this support.

Here, the person is considered a patient who requires the intervention of reha-bilitation professionals in order to adapt to the surrounding environment (social and physical). In this case, the change that is needed is centered more in the “patient” than in the environment.

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The main idea of this model is that the “patient” recovers his or her health and functionality to the greatest extent possible, in order to carry out the activities of daily life and to work in some productive activity (a job). Ac-cording to this paradigm, the disability is resolved through rehabilitation, as if the person had no other needs. Or stated another way: the disability is seen mainly as a health problem.

In the view of this biological model (also known as the medical or re-habilitation model), the person who receives rehabilitation must follow the recommendations and orientations of the professional team, without questioning anything. This model has utilized and continues to utilize concepts such as “normalization” and “integration” of people with di-sabilities.

“Normalization” is the idea that people with deficiencies should achieve (often, as stated by professionals) “an existence as close to normal as possible.” Moreover, the concept of “integration” associated with disa-bled people arises mainly in the school environment. “All children have the right to attend a regular school near their home, without exception.” Over time, the principle of integration moved beyond the educational realm and expanded into other fields. This led to the idea of disabled people’s “social integration” and “employment integration.”

It’s important to note that this biological model was adopted by most professionals working in some way with disabilities, who have had a great influence on this field. Thus, many laws, policies and actions in our coun-tries have the seal of the biological model, even though many of the attitudes and much of the behavior in our societies correspond to the conceptions associated with the traditional model.

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EMPLOYMENT

We will give you rehabilitation so you will no longer face

barriers!

Finally, there is no question that rehabilitation is important for improving people’s health conditions, skills and abilities. It would be illogical to oppose rehabilita-tion in any way. However, it is incorrect to view every disabled person only as a patient, or to restrict their ability to decide what they need or limit their rights in any way. Less emphasis should be placed on their health, and more needs to be focused on other human needs. Otherwise, they receive incomplete assistance and support.

c. The human rights paradigm

The human rights paradigm centers on intrinsic human dignity. In other words, the dignity that comes simply from the fact of being human, independent, or possessing other conditions or traits: being a man or a woman, the color of one’s skin (black, copper, yellow, white, etc.), one’s age, height, disability, social status, etc.

According to this approach or paradigm, a disability is just one more trait found among the entire range of human beings, rather than the trait that defines a person’s entire existence, that sums up a person’s life in a framework of discri-mination and exclusion.

In the view of this paradigm, a disability is a social outcome that results when people with deficiencies interact with attitudinal and environmental barriers that restrict their full and effective participation, their inclusion, and their deve-lopment in the society where they live, under equal conditions as those enjo-yed by others.

According to this model, the “problem” of the disability is located in the socio-cultural and physical domain, and is derived from a lack of state and societal awareness about the difference represented by a disability.

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Consequently, the state is obligated to address socially created obsta-cles, in order to promote and guarantee full respect for the dignity and equal rights of all persons.

Here, the person with a disability shifts from being a recipient of assistance and rehabilitation (an “object”) to being a “subject” who has rights and obligations. The disabled person can develop an independent life, can freely go anywhere because societies have eliminated obstacles and have been built on the basis of accessibility, can participate actively in his or her community and country, can vote or be nominated for electoral office, has access to inclusive education, to health care, to jobs, to re-creation and to sports. In other words, the disabled person develops his or her life under the same conditions as people who do not have a disability.

In general, this model is regulated by the following principles:

- Respect for the inherent dignity of human beings and all of their rights.

- Equality among all human beings, without discriminating on the basis of disabilities.

- Respect for human diversity (and the view that a deficiency is just one condition or trait that makes up this diversity).

- Respect for personal autonomy and independence (living an indepen-dent life).

- Self-representation and the freedom to make decisions about one’s own life.

- Participation and full and effective inclusion in society.

- Equal opportunities and building the capacities needed to make use of such opportunities.

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SCHOOL

- Affirmative action as a means to insuring the social inclusion of people with disabilities, and the enjoyment of equal opportunities.

- Accessibility, in physical environments, to information and communications, and to services.

This paradigm has been developing since the end of the last century and has continued developing in the first years of the 21st century. The human rights approach has been increasingly present in the normative structures of diffe-rent countries, but its application—especially in developing nations—has been limited.

The Standard Rules on the Equalization of Opportunities for Persons with Disa-bilities (United Nations, 1993) are inspired by this model, but since they are not obligatory, States may either apply them or not. The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which the United Nations approved on December 13, 2006, is also based on the human rights model. Its advantage, however, is that its provisions are binding; in other words, States Parties will be obligated to apply them.

When this important Convention enters into force (after having been ratified by at least 20 countries), the human rights paradigm will have a legal basis for obligatory universal application. Thus, this paradigm will be the one that predominates legally, over the biological model and the traditional view of disabilities, which continue exerting the greatest influence in our societies and on policies and actions related to disabilities.

We should also be aware of other rules such as the Inter-American Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Persons with Disabilities, approved by the Organization of American States (OAS) in Guatemala in June

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1999. This treaty is now in force; however, the OAS has been delayed in convening the Anti-Discrimination Committee which, once established, should request a report from member governments about the discrimina-tory conditions faced by disabled persons in the different countries of the American continent.

Although legal and judicial aspects are clearly very important in our socie-ties, we are also aware that such legislation is just a first step. Even more important will be compliance with this legal framework, and its conversion into real and concrete actions and programs that improve the living con-ditions of people with disabilities.

Finally, it is also important to remember that this human rights paradigm has been developed and strengthened through the struggles of disabled people, their organizations, and other sectors working to promote the rights of all people.

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Special class for students with disabilities.

INCLUSIVE CLASS

Integration is associated with the biological paradigm, while inclusion is directly linked to a human rights and social development approach. The following table compares INTEGRATION and INCLUSION, illustrating the main characteristics of both models.

INCLUSION INTEGRATIONInclusion: Total and unconditional insertion (for exam-ple, the insertion of children with disabilities into regular schools).

Integration: Partial or conditional insertion (for exam-ple, children with disabilities “are trained” in special schools or classes to be able to partially integrate into regular schools or classrooms).

Inclusion: Demands the complete transformation of systems.

Integration: Seeks concessions or more flexibility from different systems.

Inclusion: Changes that benefit all people. Integration: People with disabilities adapt to already existing models, and these are only adjusted.

Inclusion: Not defined only by the presence of people with or without disabilities in the same environment, but rather by adaptations to the environment to make room for diversity.

Integration: The simple presence of people with and without disabilities in the same environment tends to be sufficient for using the adjective “integrative.”

Inclusion: Safeguards the rights of ALL people, whether or not they have disabilities.

Integration: Safeguards the rights of people with disabi-lities.

Inclusion: Brings “excluded” groups into different sys-tems, and simultaneously transforms these systems so that they provide quality services to EVERYBODY.

Integration: Inserts “the excluded people who can pro-ve that they are apt” into groups (for example, quota systems).

Inclusion: The adjective “inclusive” is used when see-king quality for ALL people, whether or not they have disabilities.

Integration: The adjective “integrative” is used when quality is sought in structures that only attend to people with disabilities (considered apt) in schools, workplaces, etc.

Inclusion: Based on the understanding that we are ALL different, and that the concepts of “special,” “normal” and “exceptional” do not exist.

Integration: Motivates people with disabilities to adapt to dominant models, without valuing diversity (for example, genuine forms of communication such as sign language).

Adapted from Claudia Werneck, Manual do Midia Legal, WVA Editora, 2003.

2. Shaking things up and changing them

When we examine the three models, we realize that all three co-exist in our societies, which can lead to differences when actions are being developed and can generate disagreements. We are living in a time of transition between previous models and the human rights model. As with any change in our societies, the one linked to disabilities is so im-portant that it shakes things up, like the tremors after an earthquake. Let’s look at the ways the three models are present in our countries:

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Questions for evaluation and reflection/ Chapter I:

1) In your own words and based on your own experiences with disabilities, define:

a. The traditional model________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________.

b. The biological model________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________.

c. The human rights model_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________.

2) Give an example of how each model is applied to situations that you know about or have ex-perienced:

3) Indicate which model pertains to each of the situations described here:

a) A special classroom is being built in your school for the “disabled.”Model: ____________________.

b) A Municipality is obligated to build access ramps for the main public buildings, to comply with current regulations and because of pressure exerted by organizations of disabled persons. Model: _____________________.

c) A place was set up where Juanita, a deaf girl, can beg more successfully.Model:____________________.

4) How would you define a citizen with a disability? _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________.

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Evaluation IEvaluation I

Chapter II What are human rights?After finishing this chapter, readers should fully understand the concept of human rights and be able to identify the main features of these rights, distinguish between different types of rights, and evaluate the importance of human rights to people with disabilities.

1. Definition and features of human rights

- Human rights are freedoms, faculties or basic values that guarantee a dignified life, which are possessed by all people based on the simple fact that they are human beings. It is the responsibility of governments to respect, guarantee, or satisfy such rights. (Morales Gil de la Torre, Héctor).

- Human rights are also legal guarantees that protect people and groups of people against acts by governments that might compromise fundamental rights and human dignity.

- Human rights regulations obligate governments to do certain things that favor people and the full enjoyment of their rights, and that impede others from limiting, restricting or conditio-ning the enjoyment of such rights.

- The following are some of the features of human rights:

• They focus on human dignity,• They are legally protected,• They are internationally guaranteed, • They protect people and groups of people,• They obligate States and state agents,• They may neither be the object of exceptions nor be eliminated, • They are equal and interdependent,• They are universal.

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CHAPTER IICHAPTER II

Two very important features of human rights that merit emphasis are their interdependen-ce (in exercising them, rights depend on each other), and indivisibility (they are separated from one another to make them more understandable, but they should be understood as a unified whole). Consequently, living fully and achieving development not only requires that a person’s civil and political rights are respected, but also their economic, social and cultural rights. For example, it is very difficult for a person to enjoy freedom (a civil right) when they are starving (the provision of food: an economic and social right). These two features are very important when we evaluate the rights of people with disabilities, as we will see later.

2. Types of human rights

Human rights can be grouped into different categories. The most common distinction is between civil and political rights, on the one hand, and economic, social and cultural rights, on the other.

a. Civil and political rights

These protect a human being, individually, against any type of aggression or abuse by any public institution.

The guarantee of civil and political rights is immediate; therefore, these rights can be de-manded at any time and in any place, except under emergency circumstances that permit certain restrictions on some civil and political rights.

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Rights: Examples of ways these rights are violated:The right to personal integrity. A policeman detains someone and uses excessive

force, including hitting them. The right to due process and justice. A person is deprived of their freedom without having

been judged or convicted. The right to privacy. An authority opens someone’s correspondence and

reads it without authorization. A person’s legal capacity. A person’s inheritance is taken away from them on

the basis of being “crazy” and therefore lacking “legal capacity.”

The right to freedom of movement. Someone who uses a wheelchair wishes to enter a pu-blic building and there are no ramps, only steps.

The right to suffrage and to vote. A person with a disability cannot enter a polling place to vote because it is inaccessible.

The right to be elected to public office. A law specifies that deaf and blind people cannot run for the office of mayor.

We are not going to enumerate the entire range of human rights here. However, we should remember that civil and political rights include:

- rights related to a person’s life, integrity, liberty, and security, - rights related to the administration of justice, - the right to privacy,- a person’s legal capacity, - the rights of freedom of religion or beliefs, and of opinion and expression, - the right to freedom of movement,- the right to a nationality, - the right to associate and meet, and - the right to citizenship and political participation (the right, through suffrage, to elect one’s government, or to be elected to public office).

The following are some examples of civil and political rights, and the ways they can be viola-ted:

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b. Economic, social and cultural rights

Economic, social and cultural rights are part of second-generation rights. Their main objective is guaranteeing economic well-being, access to work, education, and culture. In other words, they assure people’s development.

These are collective rights, because they benefit groups of human beings but not one person in particular. We say that these rights are progressively achieved, because they can only be demanded to the extent that the State has resources to guarantee them. However, this does not mean that the State can use its lack of resources as an excuse for not meeting its obli-gations when in reality it has such resources available, or when it does not make the necessary effort to obtain them.

Economic, social and cultural rights include:

- the right to work; - the freedom to organize trade unions; - the right to an adequate standard of living, including food, clothing, and adequate housing; - the right to health and medical care; - the right to education,- the right to recreation and leisure, and - the right to participate in cultural life.

c. Third-generation rights

Civil and political rights are also referred to as “first-generation rights,” since they were the first rights to be consecrated in international conventions. Economic, social and cultural rights are referred to as “second-generation rights.” To some extent,

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SUPERMARKET

hese denominations indicate that some rights are more important than others.

There is a third group of rights: the so-called “third-generation” rights or people’s rights, which have been promoted since the 1970s to encourage social progress and improve the standard of living of all people. Some of the more prominent of these are related to:

- The use of scientific and technological advances; - The solution to food, demographic, educational and ecological problems; - The environment;- The common heritage of humanity;- Development, in support of a dignified life; - Peace.

3. What are the rights of a disabled person?

The same as the rights of any other human being. People with disabilities do not have special rights. What happens is that social and cultural environments undervalue, discriminate against and exclude people with disabilities, and inaccessible physical environments and services re-peatedly violate the human rights of people with disabilities.

Thus, we can say that there is no “right to accessibility” per se, as people sometimes say. Physi-cal accessibility, or access to information, is something that the State should guarantee, so that people with physical or sensory disabilities can exercise their right to freedom of movement or the freedom of expression and the freedom to seek, receive and impart information. Thus, things like ramps are not a right; they are tools that allow a right to be enjoyed. We could say the same about Braille, and about sign language.

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4. What are human rights violations?

a. A human rights violation

- A Human Right is violated when a public functionary and/or authority abuses his or her power, and threatens to deny or by omission infringe upon our human rights and/or constitutional guarantees, which are enshrined in the national Constitu-tion and in the human rights conventions, treaties, pacts and declarations which a nation has signed and ratified. - “Human rights violations” include any governmental transgressions related to the rights that are guaranteed by national, regional or international human rights norms and regulations, and any acts or omissions directly imputable to the State that assume its non-compliance with the legal obligations derived from these.

- A violation occurs when a law, policy or practice infringes upon or deliberately ignores the State’s respective obligations, or when these do not reach the level of conduct or results that are required. Human rights violations also occur when the State withdraws or eliminates existing protections of human rights.

- All human rights—civil, cultural, economic, political and social—impose three types of obligations on governments: respect, protection and compliance. Any omission in this respect committed by a government constitutes a human rights violation.

- It is important to emphasize that in general, human rights violations always imply the intervention of a State agent (a soldier, a policeman, a public functionary, etc.) in the case of direct violations. For example, in the case of a policeman who detains a person and deprives them of their freedom without merit (in other words, arbitrarily). But the State can also be responsible for human rights viola-tions “by omission”—in other words, for failing to do what it is supposed to do. For example, in the case of a husband who physically assaults his wife, and the poli-ce—because of male chauvinist attitudes—do nothing when the wife reports it. In this case, the State is responsible for this rights violation (against the woman’s security and physical integrity), because its agents did not fulfill their duty.

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It is important to distinguish the fact that although individuals have general res-ponsibilities to their community, and at a minimum should respect the human rights of others, it is the State that is obligated to guarantee human rights.

b. When are the rights of people with disabilities being violated?

- When the State does not generate the necessary socio-cultural conditions to eliminate undervaluing, discrimination, and exclusion.

- When the State continues creating barriers to physical access and to commu-nication and information, and allows private institutions providing public services to also create such barriers.

- When the State generates regulations and norms that recognize the rights of people with disabilities, but does not design plans, programs, policies, projects and actions, or does so only in a very limited manner, so that disabled people can only participate marginally in development, and not as full citizens.

Three examples of rights violations of people with disabilities:

- For people with motor and sensory disabilities, the right to liberty of movement—something that is not restricted for people in general in any of our cities—is restric-ted and discriminates against them. People with such disabilities need adequate and secure ramps, and urban settings that are free of obstacles and barriers in order to mobilize freely. Given that we are referring to

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I´M FREE TO GO WHERE I WANT

Right to personal mobility

public spaces, their construction and maintenance is the responsibility of the Sta-te (either the Ministry of Public Works in the case of the central government, or municipal governments). Insuring the right to free circulation means that the State needs to create adequate conditions so that people with motor disabilities can enjoy this right just like anyone else, and this is only possible through eliminating ur-ban obstacles and installing ramps and other facilities that insure accessibility. In other words, physical accessibility is a means for guaranteeing that people with disabilities can exercise their right to freedom of movement.

- A blind person visits a public library and requests a copy of the Constitution of the Republic in Braille, or in another format that would make it accessible, and is told that only printed copies are available. Here, the right to receive informa-tion is being violated. In this case, the means for exercising this right on an equal basis with people who can read a print version of the Constitution would include insuring the availability of a version in Braille, or audio tapes, or the provision of a computer that is programmed to provide the text to a blind person.

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THEY SAY THAT I´M FREE TO GO WHERE I WANT BUT I CAN´T

TAKE THE BUS BECAUSE IT DOES NOT HAVE A RAMP OR LIFT.

Right to personal mobility?

- If a deaf person visits a public office and cannot carry out the business that he or she came to do because the functionary in charge cannot commu-nicate with them (since they cannot speak in sign language) and cannot in some way work out this problem with communication, this signifies a violation of the deaf person’s rights. This is because the deaf person is not receiving the same service as a hearing person; in other words, the deaf person is receiving discriminatory treatment. In this case, the rights being violated are, first of all, the freedom to seek, receive and impart information, and secondly the right to freedom of expression. The ability of public servants to communicate in sign language, or to use an alternative means of communication to resolve a deaf person’s need for information and communication, are the means that gua-rantee the exercise of the above-mentioned rights.

5. The interdependence of rights of people with disabilities

When speaking in general about civil and political rights, or about economic, social and cultural rights, many authors insist that the interdependence of the-se groups of rights is key to their enjoyment and exercise. Such a conception commits the State to immediately guaranteeing the first group of rights, and to make greater efforts to guarantee the second group.

Nonetheless, this interdependence takes on an even greater importance when we refer to the rights of people with disabilities, since their civil and poli-tical rights (immediate, as indicated) cannot be insured unless adequate con-ditions are created through actions that are linked to insuring their economic and social rights.

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We are here to serve everyone.

It has been written: “Disability is one of the best areas in which to assert and prove the indivisibility and interdependence of civil, political, econo-mic, social and cultural rights. People with disabilities must be afforded freedom, but also the means to take advantage of it. This can be done by providing relevant social supports and, in particular, by respecting econo-mic, social and cultural rights.” (Human Rights and Disability, Gerard Quinn and Theresia Degener).

- If there are no ramps or accessible public transportation, I cannot enjoy freedom of movement!- If the polling places are not accessible, my political right to elect my re-presentatives is being restricted! - If the text of this law isn’t available in Braille, I cannot enjoy the freedom to receive information!

6. Human rights and the type of environment

As already stated: BEING DISABLED is the result or product of the relation-ship between a PERSON WITH DEFICIENCIES and a DISABLING ENVIRON-MENT (cultural, social, economic, political).

Since the State and its institutions are RESPONSIBLE for this environment, they must also play a key role in making it inclusive and accessible. This means creating the conditions that insure that people with disabilities can fully enjoy their human rights. What has predominated to date is a DISA-BLING ENVIRONMENT.

This environment that undervalues, segregates, excludes, and makes the disabled person invisible is an environment that also multiplies the viola-tions of disabled people’s human rights.

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EXCLUSIONUnderestimation

INVISIBILITYDISCRIMINATIONSEGREGATION

INCLUSIVE SOCIETY

The development of a human rights paradigm has defined this relationship between a discriminatory and ex-cluding environment and human rights violations, which affects people with disabilities in an ongoing manner. The following table illustrates this relationship:

• In other words, a DISABILITY (D) is a variable that results from the interaction between a variable that has to do with a person’s functionality (FL: Functional Limitation) and another variable that is related to the environment (E) and social organization.

• To illustrate the impact that the environment has on the relationship between a disability and a functio-nal limitation “mathematically,” we use the following equation (Marcelo Medeiros, 2005):

More barriers, more disability: If we assign a value of “zero” to an imaginary environment that has no barriers, the product of this equation will always be zero, regardless of the value assigned to a person’s functional limi-tation. However, as the value assigned to the environment increases, the greater the functional impact that the disability has on the life of the person. As we see here:

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Person with a Deficiency (physical, sensory,

mental)

DISABLING CULTURAL AND SOCIAL ENVIRON-MENT

CAUSE OR AGGRAVATING FACTOR

Person with a disability

-Made invisible,-Underestimated,-Discriminated against,-Segregated,-Excluded,-Converted into an object of pity and charity,-Converted into a patient,-Annulled or restricted rights,-Loss of citizenship,-Impeded or limited participation,-Object of assistance and social protection,-Excluded from the national development agenda.

AN ENVIRONMENT THAT MULTIPLIES HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS

D = FL x E

FL 1 x E 0 = D 0 FL 5 x E 0 = D 0

FL 1 x E 1 = D 1 FL 5 x E 5 = D 25

Questions for evaluation and reflection/ Chapter II:

1) Provide a clear and concise answer to the following questions:

a. What are human rights? _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________.

b. Write down three features of human rights, and explain them briefly ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________.

c. What are civil and political rights, and economic, social and cultural rights?___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________.

2) Is there a difference between general human rights and the rights of people with disa-bilities?

3) Explain ways that the rights of people with disabilities are violated.

4) Why do we affirm that the interdependence and indivisibility of rights are so important when it comes to disabled people exercising their rights? Give examples to support your explanation.

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Evaluation IIEvaluation II

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Chapter IIIExclusion, Inclusion and Poverty linked to DisabilityAfter a careful reading of this chapter, the reader should be able to unders-tand the concepts of exclusion and inclusion, why poverty is associated with disability and vice versa, why people with a disability are often poorer than other poor people, and the actions that need to be developed to break the vicious circle of poverty and disability.

1. What are exclusion and inclusion?

In human societies, there are people who enjoy an elevated standard of living, whose residences are good or very good quality, and who have access to all services that development offers. In other words, they are surrounded by ma-terial conditions and services that allow them to live well, with access to health, education, income from their investments or good jobs, recreation, etc.

There are other people whose standard of living isn’t so high, but who have adequate living conditions. They have access to basic services. They are si-tuated between the minority in our societies who live extremely well, and other segments of the population who live (or barely survive) in bad or very bad con-ditions. This is the middle class.

Then there are other sectors—generally the majority in our countries—who live in the midst of very difficult material conditions, without access to many basic services. When they do receive such services, they are not the best quality. These are the poor and very poor.

We could say that the first group is included, the second group has an interme-diate level of inclusion, and those on the bottom would be situated among the excluded or most excluded. Excluded from what? Well, from economic and social development.

CHAPTER IIICHAPTER III

INCLUDED

EXCLUDED

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In other words, exclusion and inclusion are conditions or features related to the degree to which people have access to goods and services, and to the development of the society they live in. Examples of goods are homes, refrigerators, electric stoves, washing machines, etc. Services in-clude electricity, potable water, health, a job, education, telephone and Internet service, etc.

Thus, exclusion is the condition experienced by people who do not have sustained access to the enjoyment of economic and social development, or who only have it in a very limited manner. On the other hand, inclusion is the condition enjoyed by those who have access to the goods and ser-vices generated by the social development of a given society.

Moreover, exclusion is manifested in the full enjoyment or denial of citi-zenship, access or lack of access to income and other resources, and to social development programs, etc.

In the societies of Central America, a large number of inhabitants live in conditions of poverty and exclusion. According to data from a recent study by the Latin American School of Social Sciences (FLACSO), a little more than half of the almost 40 million Central Americans live in conditions of poverty and extreme poverty.

2. What is poverty?

Poverty is a condition experienced by families or people whose income does not manage to satisfy their basic needs for food, and other needs such as health, education, housing, clothing, transportation, etc.

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There are different ways of defining who is poor and who isn’t.

For example, in Costa Rica, the poverty line method is used to determine who is poor. This method consists of:

“Calculating a poverty line, which represents the minimum income that allows a household to have sufficient resources to attend to the basic food and non-food needs of its members.” (INEC, Costa Rica)

Using this method, poor households are defined as those whose income per person is equal to or less than the one defined as “the poverty line.” At the same time, extremely poor households are those whose income per person does not cover (or barely covers) the costs of basic food, or the so-called “basic food basket.”

Here is an example:

• Let’s suppose that a 4-member household in a rural zone of one of our countries has a monthly income of 1,000 pesos. • This means that the income per person is 250 pesos, which we deri-ve from dividing the total income by four. • If the per-person income for the poverty line is 300 pesos, this rural family will need more than 1,200 pesos of monthly income to not be clas-sified as poor.

THERE IS HARDLY MONEY FOR FOOD; THE CHILDREN WILL HAVE

TO GO TO SCHOOL WITHOUTSHOES

TODAY THE CAT IS LAYING ON THE STOVE BECAUSE

THERE IS NOTHING TO COOK

a) Poor family

b) Extremely poor family

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3. Poverty and social participation

Although poverty is clearly manifested in income and available resources, it should not be reduced to only this material dimension. Poverty has concre-te manifestations and consequences in terms of social participation.

The search for resources to meet family needs obligates poor people to spend most of their time engaged in such efforts, which generally diminis-hes their social participation. There is also a tendency among political and government institutions to underestimate poor people, both in terms of their involvement in political processes, and in community consults and proces-ses related to social programs.

It is no coincidence that in most of our countries, poor people are viewed as objects to be utilized in electoral processes. During electoral campaigns, promises are made to improve living conditions so that citizens will deliver their votes, but once elected, governments do not fulfill, or barely fulfill, any of their campaign promises. Many political parties that are elected ma-nipulate the needs of the poor, in what we refer to as “clientelism.” They assure the votes of poor citizens by handing out food or building materials that are acquired with public resources.

In recent years, there has been a clear trend toward attributing greater importance to citizen participation as an expression of democratic deve-lopment, and as an adequate means for promoting social development. For example, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) affirms that “participation is an essential component of human development,” and that people “desire permanent progress toward more complete participation.” As noted by Bernardo Klinksberg, “participation generates much better so-cial results than other more traditional organizational models, such as bu-reaucratic and paternalistic models.”

The better results that participatory models yield in social programs are due to a series of comparative advantages. The following are three of these:

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(1) No one understands someone’s problems and needs better than those who are actually affected by them. Thus, the community or a particular sector is really the best source of such information.

(2) Community participation can be the key factor in insuring a program’s good development and operation. The same is true for avoiding corrup-tion or the inadequate management of social programs. Social control will undoubtedly create a better basis for accountability.

(3) The people most indicated for evaluating the final results and impact of social projects are those who benefit from them. In other words, the recipients of these projects. Participatory evaluations produce better as-sessments of “effectively obtained results, deficiencies, unexpected fa-vorable and unfavorable effects, and key elements for future designs” (Klinksberg, Bernardo).

Consequently, we may conclude that sector, community and citizen par-ticipation are an effective means of fighting poverty and promoting so-cial development. The states and governments that seriously promote this type of participation (especially that of the poorest sectors) demonstrate a greater commitment to the eradication of poverty.

4. Disabilities and additional expenses

This is very important! When studying poverty that is associated with di-sabilities, Amartya Sen, recipient of the Nobel Prize for Economics in 1998, noted: “The poverty line defined for people with a disability should take into account the additional costs incurred when their income is translated into possibilities for living well.”

People with disabilities face additional costs for satisfying the same needs as people without disabilities.

GENERAL EXPENSES GENERAL EXPEN-

SES AND SPECIFIC EXPENSES DUE TO

DISABILITY

Amartya Sen affirms that in the United Kingdom, 23.1% of disabled people are poor compared to an overall index in the country of 17.9%. However, when the additional expenses associated with having a disability are consi-dered, the poverty index for people with a disability shoots up to 47.4%.

In the following table, we see the needs and demands of the population wi-thout disabilities, and the specific needs that people with disabilities require in order to live in equal conditions as others and satisfy the same needs. Nor-mally, governments should respond to these needs through public policies.

Population without disabilities Population with disabilitiesHEALTH + Rehabilitation-Outfitting /Specific

needsFOOD + Specific diets/ nutritional supple-

mentsHOUSING + AccessibleCLOTHING + AdequateEDUCATION + Adaptations/ Special InclusiveEMPLOYMENT + AdjustmentsTRANSPORTATION + AccessibleSOCIAL SECURITY + AdjustmentsRECREATION/ CULTURE + AccessibleSPORTS + AccessiblePHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT + AccessibleINFORMATION + Accessible

+ ASSISTIVE DEVICE

35

Needs / Demands

36

Everything written in the right column signifies additional resources. These are resources that are needed to attend to basic needs, and which per-mit the social and productive inclusion of people with disabilities.

Currently, some of these needs are being covered by family resources or by assistance from private organizations, many of which are charitable groups. Some governments attend to some of these needs or demands, but only minimally since States tend to view this as spending rather than as a social investment. This is mainly because of existing prejudices that classify disabled people as non-productive.

The consequence is the creation of conditions that keep people with di-sabilities among the poorest in our societies, suffering from both economic and social exclusion.

5. Exclusion of people with disabilities

According to estimates by the World Health Organization (WHO), Central America has around four million disabled persons.

When examining the living conditions of disabled Central Americans, many studies have found that most of these people live in conditions of poverty and social exclusion. For example, in characterizing the living conditions of disabled people in Costa Rica, the Office to Defend Citi-zen Rights (Defensoría de los Habitantes) has indicated that they are “the most excluded of the excluded.”

The development models and plans that have been adopted in our coun-tries to date have not been able to generate well-being for the majority; rather, different groups have been and continue to be excluded from the benefits of development.

I‘M SORRY BUT WE ONLY EMPLOY “NORMAL”

PEOPLE HEREEMPLOYMENT

37

Among these groups are indigenous groups, Afro-descendent populations, women, the elderly, people with disabilities, and ethnic, religious and sexual minorities, all of whom are commonly referred to as “groups living in situa-tions of risk.”

Bengt Lindqvist, who was the United Nations’ Special Rapporteur on Disabi-lity, has said that poverty produces disability, and that disability generates poverty. In other words, there is a circular relationship between poverty and disability, as both cause and outcome.

How does this happen?

Let’s look at how poverty can generate disabilities:

- If a family lives in very bad or precarious hygienic and health conditions, some of its members will have a greater likelihood of acquiring a deficiency that converts them into a disabled person. For instance, consuming con-taminated water can cause diseases that produce different types of visual deficiencies or blindness.

- There are very risky and unsafe jobs that people accept because they are poor. Many of these risky jobs or productive activities can endanger a person’s health, and are an important cause of deficiencies that generate a disability. One example: artisanal divers who fish for lobster along the Ca-ribbean coast of Nicaragua and Honduras, who suffer permanent injuries and even death.

Here are three cases that demonstrate the ways that disabilities generate poverty:

1) If a family member has a very severe disability, this person must generally remain at home with another family member who must care for them. Con-sequently, the person providing such care cannot work and will not genera-te income for the family. Thus, both the person with the disability and their caretaker must depend upon a reduced family income.

DISABLING DISEASES

38

2) Generally, family members with a disability require extra spending for goods and services related to their disability. Such costs must be covered by the family’s income, which reduces or impedes attending to other fa-mily needs.

3) If a family member with a disability has the ability and desire to work and be productive but cannot obtain a job because of the disability, this person is not only prohibited from generating income for him or herself and contributing to the family income, but also must depend upon the income produced by other family members.

This vicious circle means that people with disabilities are more likely to be poor and to remain poor. This situation can only change by breaking the vicious circle, which we will look at in the next chapter.

6. A diagnostic appraisal

In May 2003, an international dialogue on disability and development took place in Helsinki Finland, sponsored by the World Bank’s Office of the Advisor on Disability and Development. At this important meeting, a diagnostic assessment was conducted of the relationship between disa-bility and development, focusing on the situations confronted by disabled people in poor countries.

The final report concluded that “the vast majority of this population occu-py the lowest rung of the socio-economic ladder, are among the poorest of the poor, and are rarely reached by development projects,” and that the disability and development landscape is characterized mainly by:

- Small scale pilot projects scattered throughout selected developing countries, funded by external donors;

- Collapse of projects when the external aid cycle is completed;

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- Infusion of aid and new projects in countries in current favor with deve-lopment agencies and investment policies, followed by abandonment when attention is refocused to other countries;

- Isolation of disability and development projects from mainstream de-velopment programs and goals of a particular country; - Pervasiveness of prevention as the development community’s respon-se to disability;

- Failure to include the principle of accessibility in ordinary development programs;

- Lack of shared information (on a domestic or international basis) about objectives and results of disability projects, so that, in effect, each pro-ject is developed (and often dies) in a vacuum.

More inequality. The Latin American and Caribbean region (LAC) is the most unequal region in the world. According to data from CEPAL (Economic Commission for Latin Ame-rica and the Caribbean), 181 million Latin Americans are poor and 70 million more are indigent (October 2009).

Population: Based on estimates by WHO, at least 79 million people in Latin America and the Caribbean have some type of disability.

Poverty: More than 80% of disabled people in LAC live (or survive) in conditions of poverty. Consequently, there are close to 63 million poor people with disabilities.

Education: Only 20-30% of disabled children in LAC attend school. This is due to the lack of accessible transportation and infrastructure, trained teachers and didactic materials, etc.

Employment: Between 80-90% of people with disabilities in LAC are unemployed, and almost all of those who have jobs receive low salaries or no monetary compensation.

Health services: Most people with disabilities in the region do not have access to health services.

Some data from Latin America and the Caribbean that illustrates the existing relationship between po-

verty and disability

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Questions for evaluation and reflection/ Chapter III:

1) Please provide a clear and concise answer:a. What is social exclusion?_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________.

b. What is social inclusion? _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________.

2) Investigate what method is used to define poverty in your country. You can do this by calling the Statistics and Census Bureau on the telephone to inquire, or by visiting this institution’s web site. It would also be useful to read publications in your country that contain data about disabilities and poverty.

3) In your own words, explain the vicious circle between poverty and disability. Give an example of this circle from your own experiences_____________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________.

4) Comment on the following phrase: “People with disabilities are disproportionately poor, and the poor are disproportionately disabled.”

5) Add up the additional expenses that a family you know with a disabled member has to spend. Inves-tigate how they cover these costs.

6) If you were in a decision-making position, what actions would you promote to break the vicious circle of poverty and disability?

Evaluation IIIEvaluation III

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Chapter IVInclusive DevelopmentOnce this chapter has been concluded, the reader should understand different development models, the “inclusive development” concept, why this develo-pment strategy is so important to people with disabilities and their families, the kinds of actions that should be developed to promote this model, and the ins-truments or means that can be used to promote more inclusive development.

1. Development models

In some or most of our countries, a development model is understood as an economic model, and this includes the most permanent and structural aspects, both medium and long-range, of a nation’s economic policy.

It is the form in which a society:• Uses the nation’s resources,• Interrelates with other societies, • Responds to changes and processes, both internal and external, • Designs institutions to achieve its objectives, and• (Very importantly) DISTRIBUTES the revenues generated by its productive activities.

The United Nations defines development as the substantial improvement in the social and material conditions of people, in a framework of respect for cultural values. To achieve this development, countries utilize different models and ob-tain a range of different outcomes.

If we think about or evaluate our countries’ development in recent years, it is very likely that we will conclude that it does not fit the UN’s definition of deve-lopment. One of the main problems with our models is that the wealth they generate is not well distributed.

Evaluation III CHAPTER IVCHAPTER IV

42

In other words, only a little goes to a lot of people, and a lot goes to only a few. Meanwhile, the number of people living in poverty keeps growing.

To summarize, we could say that our countries have adopted a type of development model that is generally more concerned with economic growth (which is the main point of an economic model) and only minima-lly concerned with the social distribution of the wealth that is produced (which is the idea of a social model), and insufficiently concerned with protecting the environment (which is at the heart of a sustainable model).

2. Sustainable human development

In the early 1990s, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) pro-posed a new concept of development and a strategy for achieving it. It is called “sustainable human development,” which is essentially based on the ideas of previous development theories. It embraces, on the one hand, the concept of “sustainable development,” and on the other hand, “human scale development,” but with the latter carried out on a more collective level.

Sustainable development responds to the concern that natural resources can be used up, and if we are not careful about their use today, we will complicate the lives of future generations. The UNDP combined this con-ception with the idea that the main beneficiaries of development are hu-man beings. Thus, this model argues that improving individual conditions in all areas should be the foundation for social development.

Sustainable human development asserts that development signifies pro-gress for individuals and for societies in five fundamental spheres: econo-mic, social, cultural, political-participatory, and environmental.

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The corresponding strategy for achieving such development has two compo-nents:

• Creating opportunities for the entire population, and

• Building capacities so that all people can make full use of opportunities.

3. In relation to disability

The demand for a development model that includes all people comes (or should come) from the range of sectors and groups that have been consis-tently excluded from the benefits of development. Among these groups are the indigenous, Afro-descendent populations, women, the elderly, people with di-sabilities, and ethnic, religious and sexual minorities, all of whom are commonly referred to as “living in situations of risk.”

The greatest aspiration of this conception of development is to move beyond the specific and compartmentalized approaches adopted by different social sectors, and strengthen what is common among them, the things that they can mutually reinforce. Key to this is building a global development agenda with an inclusive development approach, whose central axis is promoting broad-based and comprehensive strategies that address all dimensions of human needs.

To insure that development actions respond to all expressions of human diver-sity, public policies must specifically address the needs and demands of all ex-cluded groups, from the time they are designed through their implementation.

Given that the disability sector’s basic principles include diversity, inclusion, enabling opportunities, personal autonomy and solidarity, it has begun to ge-nerate substantial support for this development approach. This sector’s contri-bution is aimed at remedying the

44

exclusion confronted by people with disabilities, but also understanding that this situation will not change unless the general population’s quality of life also improves.

From the perspective of people with disabilities, situating ourselves on the road to inclusive development requires interrelating two key developmen-tal concepts associated with disability—human diversity and universal de-sign—with the concept of inclusion.

We need to begin to see disability as part of human diversity, and not as a condition that is the object of discrimination and exclusion, as we expe-rience every day in today’s societies. The idea is to begin to see disability as just another trait or feature, like size, skin color, and gender, rather than a condition that defines and limits a person’s entire life.

Universal design means designing and building products and environments that can safely be used by all people, and that to the extent possible do not require special adaptations. The extensive use of universal design is intended to simplify the lives of all people, making sure that products, ser-vices, means of communication and environments are fully accessible, at very low cost or at no additional cost.

This type of design (also called inclusive design) not only makes sense for the progressive shift toward universal accessibility to environments and services, but also will signify a growing economy of resources in the long-range, because it will be geared toward seeking overarching, general solutions rather than multiple specific solutions.

45

Examples:

- If buildings are constructed in compliance with universal design standards, they will be accessible to all people and their cost will increase very little (esti-mated at only 2%). However, if they are built without accessibility, many people will not be able to use them easily or safely (the elderly, pregnant women, chil-dren, etc.), and the costs will be much higher when they need to be remodeled to make them accessible.

- If a universal design is used when web pages are developed, blind people will be able to explore these pages without any access problems (which limit their use of most web pages today).

4. Inclusive development

We understand Inclusive Development as the design and effective implemen-tation of public policies and actions that bring about socio-economic and hu-man development, in a way that promotes the capacities and equal opportu-nities and rights of all people, regardless of their social condition, gender, age, physical or mental condition, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, etc., in sustai-nable harmony with the environment (IIDI).

The general accent of this development approach is on an increasingly bet-ter distribution of the wealth produced in countries, since the goal of including social groups and sectors that have been excluded from the benefits of deve-lopment will be impossible to achieve without a more equitable distribution of revenues.

As we have been indicating, people with disabilities and families with a disa-bled member are more likely to be poor, and are less likely to be able to enjoy the benefits of their nation’s development.

As they say: If the cacao is better distributed, more people can drink

the chocolate

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Here, the search for inclusive development needs to build two bridges:

• General inclusion: This means promoting better distribution of national revenues for all excluded sectors that live in conditions of poverty and extre-me poverty.

• Specific inclusion: This means promoting a change in approach and in the administration of resources allocated by the State to people with disa-bilities and their families.

- What has been happening in the realm of disabilities?

1) Poorly focused prevention. Resources are allocated to preventing defi-ciencies, but not enough are assigned to the present and future care and development of disabled people. Sometimes, this is because of the mis-taken assumption that through preventive actions we can make disabilities disappear.

2) Individual actions. Many individual and specific programs and projects are promoted and developed which are geared toward attending to people with disabilities (rather than development). Sometimes these types of ac-tions are carried out simultaneously by different institutions in an uncoordi-nated manner. According to estimates by one World Bank office, individual strategies for attending to the disabled population in our countries will not even cover the needs of 5% of this population. And this reduced percenta-ge is usually concentrated in urban zones, leaving the disabled who live in rural and more remote zones completely excluded from these programs and projects.

3) Delegation of responsibilities. Another element is the fact that the State and its institutions do not assume political or social responsibility for the issue of disability.

47

They deal with the issue only marginally, and delegate “attention” for people with disabilities to charitable programs and international donors. This attention is also pro-vided by non-governmental organizations (with or without governmental support), whose work is very well intentioned but does not always provide adequate quality or technical oversight. Although most of the work in this field is carried out by NGOs whose members are people without disabilities, there are also NGOs led by disabled people that offer services but do not undertake efforts (or only do so minimally) to struggle for the rights of people with disabilities.

4) International cooperation. The support from international donors for issues related to disabilities in developing countries has been valuable and well meant, but has not always utilized a development approach with this sector of the population, which suffers the harsh consequences of exclusion and discrimination.

- What should happen with an inclusive development approach?

1) Prevention. Good strategies for preventing deficiencies could play a large role in reducing disabilities associated with poverty, and poverty linked to disabilities. Some 80% of deficiencies could be prevented. In many cases, disabilities are the result of malnutrition, a lack of basic sanitation, environmental contamination, diseases, ar-med conflicts, accidents, urban violence, natural disasters, childbirth conditions, and genetic factors.

The deficiencies (the generators of disabilities) that arise from congenital conditions account for only 2% of all disabilities. To increase their effectiveness, efforts aimed at fighting hunger, improving health services, building safe highways, establishing safety regulations, and preserving the environment should explicitly consider and incorpo-rate a disability-prevention approach. However, despite the success that prevention programs might have, disabilities will not disappear, not even in the wealthiest na-tions. New forms resulting from poverty, aging, accidents, armed conflicts and other situations will also continue to emerge.

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2) Crosscutting and inclusive actions. It is essential that the needs of people with disabilities—in both urban and rural zones—are included in development planning (Global or National Development Plans), in public policies, and in the programs, pro-jects and actions derived from such policies.

This crosscutting inclusion should be present in the broadest range of programs, inclu-ding health, education and professional and technical training, employment, social protection and poverty reduction, transportation, housing, information and commu-nications, tourism and culture, recreation and sports, etc. In addition, sustained State actions are needed to guarantee accessibility to public infrastructure (remodeling or constructing buildings that are accessible to all) and insuring that private buildings where public services are provided are also accessible to all people.

There are some who argue that these crosscutting policies related to disabilities could be counterproductive, since they could lead to the disappearance of more specific and targeted programs before they are effectively replaced by programs that insure the due inclusion of people with disabilities in national education programs, national public health policies, employment and social security programs, etc. In other words, if such crosscutting programs do not materialize immediately, people with disabilities could be left completely on their own. It is important to heed this warning, to insure that this does not occur, but it should not paralyze or postpone the promotion and development of inclusive crosscutting policies.

3) Inclusive supervision. The State needs to supervise and guide private agencies (foundations and charitable associations, or any other type) that offer services or develop actions that benefit people with disabilities, so that they do so in ways that promote development, respect for the dignity of disabled persons and for their rights, and avoid all forms of segregation and exclusion.

4) Inclusive conditions and the sentinel approach. It is important that when multila-teral credit organizations like the World Bank (WB), the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the Central American Economic Integration Bank (BCIE) or any other in-ternational institution award credit to countries (which all taxpayers end up paying back through their taxes and other mechanisms), they include conditions in their loans that guarantee accessibility to the goods and services generated by this credit.

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It would be important to insure that all infrastructure constructed with such re-sources is accessible to all people. Otherwise, these loans would be encoura-ging discrimination and exclusion in both the present and the future (just think about the useful life of a building constructed today!).

The idea is to continue along the same road that has been encouraging envi-ronmental protection and inclusion of women. There are institutions such as the WB whose requirements for approving certain types of credits include insuran-ces of environmental protection by the recipient nation, and a program bene-fitting from such resources cannot in any way damage the environment. Along this same line, efforts have been made to incorporate a gender perspective into such loans and include women as credit beneficiaries.

In a corresponding manner, the World Bank has begun to include the “sentinel” approach in its determination of whether or not a country meets the require-ments for credit. The sentinel approach is a method of monitoring projects to identify opportunities for the inclusion of a disability dimension—as a crosscut-ting approach—and for insuring the accessibility of infrastructure that is to be built.

5) Inclusive international cooperation. It is also essential that resources from “international cooperation, including international development programs, are inclusive of and accessible to people with disabilities,” as clearly stated in the International Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

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5. How can the vicious circle be broken?

Via two complementary paths:

a. Building capacities and creating opportunities

• Creating opportunities for people with disabilities.

• Building capacities among people with disabilities so they can take advantage of opportunities.

For example, people with disabilities who are of productive age and in good condition for working could receive professional or techni-cal training (building capacities), which would let them perform a job or develop a family micro-enterprise.

Creating productive opportunities should take place in the com-petitive labor market (in both the public and private sectors) and through making credit and technical assistance available for deve-loping micro-enterprises. The State can and should play a very ac-tive role promoting the employment of the disabled, either directly or indirectly. In addition, increased accessibility to the physical en-vironment and to information should be sought, and to different ser-vices like public transportation, health care and rehabilitation. This will also help to eliminate job discrimination due to disabilities, and generate real opportunities for decent work for people with disabili-ties, based on their acquired knowledge and experience.

If this happens, people with disabilities who are not working today (notwithstanding their desire to do so) will be able to work and ge-nerate income for themselves, for their families, and for their nation when they pay taxes.

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b. Social security programs:

Social security programs to attend to family members who cannot work becau-se of their disability need to be developed. This would include, for example, set-ting up State-sponsored centers where adults with disabilities can receive atten-tion and carry out some type of activity during the day. In other words, places where the disabled do not reside permanently, but that offer a good option for daytime care so that their caretakers can work and generate income for their family. This also includes the provision of pensions to adults who cannot work because of their disability, and the provision of other supports such as technical aid, transport subsidies, etc., that offset costs so families do not lose their availa-ble incomes. These options are equally valid and necessary for disabled children from poor families, whose income is reduced when they need to invest resources in their care and attention.

6. The relationship between human rights and inclusive development

There is a mutually conditioned relationship between human rights and deve-lopment. The full and comprehensive enjoyment of human rights—civil and political, on the one hand, and economic, social and cultural on the other—is an indication and consequence of the degree of development a society has achieved.

The more that human beings enjoy their human rights, the closer a society is to achieving inclusive development. Moreover, inclusive development is inconcei-vable if the human beings who pertain to a given society are unable to enjoy their human rights in a complete and comprehensive manner.

We can conclude, therefore, that progress toward more effectively guaran-teeing the rights of people with disabilities has a positive impact on advancing toward more inclusive development. Similarly, development actions that include people with disabilities and their families have a favorable impact on the ability

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7. Instruments and spaces for inclusive action

Clearly, this is a different approach to promoting and defending the rights of people with disabilities. We also need to develop instru-ments and initiatives that provide opportunities to achieve more in-clusive development.

The following three examples are just samples of a legal instrument and two initiatives that generate opportunities where we can and should exert influence. Let’s take a look at these:

a. The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

As we know, the United Nations General Assembly approved the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities on December 13, 2006.

This new human rights treaty was the outcome of a five-year process in which people with disabilities and their organizations played a very active and leading role, inspired by the slogan: Nothing about us, without us!

The United Nations Convention should function as a valuable ins-trument that effectively contributes to eliminating discrimination against people with disabilities, to making progress in gaining recog-nition and respect for the rights and dignity of people with disabili-ties, and to promoting development with an inclusive approach.

Since entering into force both internationally (May 3, 2008) and in most Latin American countries, this treaty can and should be used as a valuable instrument for including people with disabilities in our nations’ development agendas. The States Parties are bound to do

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so, since this is a legally binding instrument. In other words, its observance is obligatory.

This is an important difference between this treaty and the United Nations Standard Rules on the Equalization of Opportunities for Persons with Disabilities, which is still valuable for promoting human rights and development for people with disabilities. However, its great weakness is that its provisions are not bin-ding and States, therefore, may either apply them or not.

b. The UN Millennium Development Goals.

This is an initiative of the Presidents and Heads of State who met in New York in late 1999. On this occasion, they approved the initiative known as the Millen-nium Development Goals, whose main objective is reducing poverty around the globe by 50%—in other words, to cut the number of people living in condi-tions of poverty in half—within a period of 15 years.

This period will conclude on December 31, 2015. Since this initiative was appro-ved, numerous actions have been undertaken in a myriad of areas in order to achieve these goals.

What relationship do these goals have to disabled people?

A very strong one. Given that poverty has a very acute impact on the lives of people with disabilities (remember the vicious circle), significant progress in reducing poverty linked to disability must be made in order to achieve these goals. Thus, the programs and actions being promoted by governments, the UN and other international organizations should include disabled people living in poverty and extreme poverty. If they do not, these goals will be destined to failure.

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Thus, we should be interested in this initiative, know it better, and see it as an op-portunity for promoting an inclusive development approach.

c. The Decade of the Americas for the Rights of Persons with Di-sabilities.

In June 2006, the General Assembly of the Organization of American States (OAS) approved the Decade of the Americas for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (2006-2016), with the goal of focusing attention on the discrimination, social exclu-sion and poverty that affects people with disabilities in the Americas.

After approving the declaration, the OAS ratified a Program of Action, which has only been very minimally fulfilled to date due to weak commitments by the OAS and its member states. Nonetheless, we should view this declaration for the de-cade, and particularly its plan of action, as an opportunity for influencing both the OAS and our nations’ governments, and pressure them to translate their de-clarations and agreements into concrete actions aimed at improving the living conditions of people with disabilities, especially those living in Latin America and the Caribbean.

d. Other important arenas.

It is important to take advantage of any arena that offers an opportunity to im-prove the living conditions of people with disabilities, including legislative assem-blies and congresses, ministries or other important public institutions, but we must also bring the idea of inclusive development to the environments where we live, such as municipal councils or neighborhood or district committees.

District or community committees are a good sounding board, since it is easier to explain the needs and problems of people with disabilities in these places where we are surrounded by friends and neighbors. For example, we can explain the need for well-constructed ramps, and people with disabilities and those using wheelchairs can act as advisors to the construction process.

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We can find allies in these committees who will accompany us and support actions in municipal arenas and with government or legislative authorities.

It would also be wise to explore whether the issue of disability is included in municipal or local government plans. If it isn’t, arenas should be sought (such as requesting an audience at a municipal session) where the de-mands and needs of disabled people can be presented.

Another option that has already been put into practice is requesting an au-dience in municipal commissions that address issues of interest to the com-munity, to present the concerns and proposals of people with disabilities and their organizations.

An inclusive development approach should be part of all of these efforts!

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Questions for evaluation and reflection/ Chapter IV:

1) What is your understanding of a development model? _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________.

2) Based on what you know, which development model is the one that’s been followed in your country? During the past ten years, has this model reduced, increased, or not impacted poverty? ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________.

3) Define “inclusive development” in your own words:_______________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________.

4) Explain how you think that the vicious circle of poverty and disability can be broken through adopting an inclusive development strategy. Relate your answer to the idea of “building capacities and creating opportunities.” _______________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________.

5) Based on what you know about the UN Millennium Development Goals for reducing poverty and the OAS Decade of the Americas for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, how do you think these initiatives can be used to gain ground for people with disabilities in Latin America and the Caribbean? ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________.

Evaluation IVEvaluation IV

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Chapter VPolitical advocacy and the rights of people with disabilities

One of the main lessons for the reader of this chapter is that in order to promote inclusive development and make progress in insuring the rights of people with disabilities, organizations of disabled persons and their key allies must become fa-miliar with political advocacy and incorporate it into their work. In addition, they need to fully understand its methodologies, its strategies, and must formulate solid political advocacy plans. These plans should then be implemented, while also taking advantage of any opportunities for promoting inclusive and democratic change in society.

1. Political advocacy as a tool for change

As states and governments have become more open to the idea of consulting with interested social sectors when they are formulating and implementing public policies, the concept of “political advocacy” has begun to make headway.

Today, different civil society groups are playing an increasingly important role, and their proposals and demands are influencing the direction of the public poli-cies their governments are promoting.

We can affirm that the power of civil society has generally grown stronger in many of our countries, while political parties—as they were conceived and developed in previous periods—have actually grown weaker and are showing clear signs of crisis.

This new situation creates opportunities for the organizations representing people with disabilities and for their relatives to fight for public policies that insure their hu-man rights. For this movement, this is both a new and challenging situation, since until recently, the use of political advocacy and political

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action as a way of promoting effective changes was more the exception than the rule among organizations of disabled persons.

There are still few organizations working for the interests of people with disabilities in our countries that have undertaken political advocacy efforts in a conscious and planned manner, with the aim of producing a law or program—or changing an existing one—to favorably impact the lives of the disabled.

Moreover, it is important to remember that the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UN, 2006) needs to be converted into a tool that is used to push for changes in domestic laws and re-gulations, so that these are consistent with the stipulations of this inter-national treaty (legislative harmonization), and so that government programs, projects and actions are promoted that comply with these stipulations (the implementation process).

We should also bear in mind that the Convention assigns an active role to people with disabilities in promoting changes that improve their living conditions and their effective enjoyment of rights, through their representative organizations. This is clearly stated in Article 29 (about political and public participation), in the section that commits states to “ensure that persons with disabilities can effectively and fully participate in political and public life on an equal basis with others, directly or through freely chosen representatives, including the right and opportunity for persons with disabilities to vote and be elected…”

Similarly, Article 4, which refers to the obligations of States Parties that have ratified the Convention, highlights the role assigned to organiza-tions representing people with disabilities: “In the development and implementation of legislation and policies to implement the present Convention, and in other decision-making processes concerning issues relating to persons with disabilities, States Parties shall closely consult with and actively involve persons with

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disabilities, including children with disabilities, through their representative organizations.” (Article 4, Number 3).

Clearly, in order to play this active political advocacy role and achieve sig-nificant results, we need to learn about, adopt and utilize political advoca-cy concepts and methodologies that have been developed and systema-tized by other organizations.

In this respect, we are adapting the systematized experience of the Was-hington Office on Latin America (WOLA) to the field of disabled persons’ rights. In the framework of developing the Central America Advocacy Tra-ining Program, this organization produced a “Manual for Facilitators of Ad-vocacy Training Sessions.” In this chapter, we will present key concepts that have been selected from this manual.

2. What is advocacy?

We begin with the definition of political advocacy:

“Political advocacy refers to organized efforts by citizens to influence the formulation and implementation of public policies and programs by persua-ding and pressuring state authorities, international financial institutions, and other powerful actors. Advocacy embraces various activities undertaken to gain access to and influence decision-makers on matters of importance to a particular group or to society in general.” (WOLA, 2002)

It is important here to note that there are different definitions of political ad-vocacy. Thus, we would like to stress the following:

a) There are two key actors in political advocacy:

-The civil society actor (who generates the proposal), and

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- The institutional actor (who receives and makes a decision about the proposal).

b) We understand an action as political advocacy when it is see-king the State’s adoption and implementation of a public policy oriented toward favoring the social sector or sectors formulating the proposal (the central government, legislature, municipal go-vernment, etc.).

c) The effectiveness of political advocacy is condi-tioned, in large part, by:

• The degree to which the sector or social group that propo-ses the demand and formulates the proposal is organized;

• The quality and soundness of the proposal’s reasoning;

• Solid planning for the political advocacy process, and

• The strategies or routes followed in carrying out the advo-cacy work.

Consequently, political advocacy is a technique and an art that needs to be understood and well mastered, so that the actions undertaken by organizations of disabled persons will be effective.

d) Political advocacy should be a means for promoting citizen participation; consequently, it is a means for both exercising real democracy and for promoting participatory democracy. Through advocacy actions, organized citizens are able to participate in decision-making processes, not only through mechanisms that delegate power through voting to elect governmental represen-tatives (representative democracy), but also through exercising participatory democracy.

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e) Although advocacy work needs to make use of all opportunities that arise so that desired public policies are enacted, it is predominantly a cumu-lative process. Advocacy consists of more than one strategy or activity. It entails the implementation of various strategies and activities over time, with creativity and persistence. Advocacy victories often are preceded by nu-merous failures. It is important not to give up, but to learn from our mistakes.

f) Another aspect to consider is that a social organization that plans and carries out advocacy actions accumulates important experience beyond the direct results of these actions. These processes help to strengthen and enrich organizations internally, in both organizational and technical terms.

g) Another important factor that should be considered when people with disabilities and their organizations engage in political advocacy work is that institutional actors generally tend to underestimate these social actors (di-sabled persons), trapped as they are in a socio-cultural environment that views their role as recipients of charity and pity, rather than as social fighters. This situation does not occur in the case of other social actors. Thus, we need to recognize this, especially when planning political advocacy work and analyzing the overall context of threats and opportunities.

3. Differences between advocacy and political advocacy

Sometimes we speak of advocacy and political advocacy as if they were synonyms or mean the same thing. However, it is important to point out the difference between these two concepts—the general one (advocacy, or exerting influence) and the specific one (political advocacy)—in the inter-est of greater conceptual and practical precision.

Advocacy is a concept related to all human relations. Whenever we relate to another human being, we influence something. For example, when we indicate what we want to eat for breakfast or lunch at home, we’re exerting an influence. In this sense, reciprocal influence is part of daily life. We can speak about advocacy as the capacity to influence.

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Here, we are going to talk about a broader kind of influence, which affects the social environment and that is also referred to as political-social advocacy, or simply advocacy.

This type of advocacy seeks changes in people’s attitudes, pro-motes greater awareness about a situation or problem, educates in order to generate cultural changes, positions specific themes within society, etc.

This type of advocacy utilizes campaigns that are developed by different social actors. For example, an ecological group that uses campaigns to alert people about environmental deteriora-tion, or about the next water crisis.

This type of action creates the kinds of conditions that are needed for eventual political advocacy work, since it tends to generate more social awareness (and consequently support from public opinion). However, such a campaign could be developed in an ongoing manner or over a long period of time, and might not ne-cessarily be linked to attaining a specific environmental protec-tion policy or program.

Some good examples of this type of advocacy are contained in Article 8 of the Convention, related to raising awareness in socie-ty about the discrimination against and exclusion of people with disabilities, and the need to promote respect for their rights and dignity.

As we all know, people with disabilities suffer from different types of stereotyping, prejudice, and discriminatory practices in our so-cieties. Most people associate disability with pity, with underesti-mation and incapacity, with sins and curses, with social rejection, with dependency and non-productivity. Ultimately, disability is so-mething negative and sad in our societies.

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Few public decision-makers see beyond this prejudicial and underestima-ting conception. When they are presented with a problem related to di-sabled people, they propose very limited solutions that are marked by a charitable mentality.

This is why Article 8 of the Convention is so important, since it is aimed at changing attitudes and overcoming prejudice against people with disa-bilities through organizing campaigns that raise awareness. This is done through educational work at all levels, through projecting more dignified and objective conceptions about people with disabilities in the media, and through “awareness-training programs regarding persons with disabilities and the rights of persons with disabilities.”

All of these obligations outlined in Article 8 of the Convention of States Par-ties are framed by the concept of advocacy, in general. If the States fulfill these efforts, obviously there will be greater awareness in society about the rights of persons with disabilities, and this will create increasingly favorable and receptive conditions for demanding public policies that insure the rights of persons with disabilities. We may affirm, therefore, that a society with awareness about the rights of people with disabilities is a society that is fertile for the enjoyment and exercise of such rights by people with disabilities. However, this goal can only be achieved through crosscutting and inclusive public policies that enable disabled persons to participate in all aspects of political and public life, in health, in education, in employment and access to productive activities, in social security, and with physical access and ac-cess to information and communications technologies. Such policies also recognize the legal capacity, autonomy and independence of persons with disabilities, and enable access to culture, tourism, sports and recrea-tion, etc., under equal conditions as all other persons. This is what Inclusi-ve Development means, seen from the viewpoint of people with disabilities and their organizations.

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Thus, we may conclude that the main difference between advocacy and political advocacy is that advocacy seeks a cultural change in so-ciety through communications and educational efforts, including publi-city campaigns, while political advocacy is aimed at producing chan-ges through generating public policies and programs, whose adoption (or non-adoption) is decided by legitimate public institutions.

4. Planning political advocacy: the eight steps of the process

WOLA’s basic methodology for participatory planning of political advo-cacy initiatives proposes eight linked and successive steps:

Step 1 Identify and analyze the problem,Step 2 Formulate the proposal,Step 3 Analyze the decision-making space,Step 4 Analyze channels of influence,Step 5 Do a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) analysis,Step 6 Design advocacy strategies,Step 7 Develop an activity plan, andStep 8 Carry out continuous evaluation.

All civil society organizations have developed and carry out political advocacy work, including organizations representing people with di-sabilities. These organizations have recently begun to work in the area of human rights. But these political advocacy efforts are often develo-ped in an improvised manner. As WOLA indicates, civil society organi-zations do this work by “…trying to resolve complex problems without clear proposals, with isolated actions and without an orderly planning and evaluation process. The tendency has been to skip over the stage of problem identification and move directly to action, without speci-fying exactly what they want to accomplish, who has decision-making power vis-à-vis the proposal, what interests are at stake, and which stra-tegies would work best.”

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These eight methodological steps specifically seek the creation of better conditions for success in the political advocacy process.

Step 1. Identify and analyze the problem

The starting point for any political advocacy effort is to clearly identify the problem that you want to solve. In this identification process, the views and input of the people most affected by this problem is very important, since they are the ones who live it and feel it most closely in their lives.

Once identified, this problem should be analyzed in depth, clearly differen-tiating between its causes and consequences in order to formulate a pro-posal with concrete, realistic and achievable solutions.

Prioritize the problem. Excluded social sectors face many problems. Thus, we need to be careful when we are defining the problem that is the object of our political advocacy work. We need to clearly identify the problem affecting us, in a concrete way, and the feasibility of resolving it through public policy. For example, let’s select unemployment as a problem that severely affects people with disabilities.

Once identified, this problem should be analyzed in depth, clearly differen-tiating between its causes and consequences in order to formulate a pro-posal with concrete, realistic and achievable solutions.

Prioritize the problem. Excluded social sectors face many problems. Thus, we need to be careful when we are defining the problem that is the object of our political advocacy work. We need to clearly identify the problem affecting us, in a concrete way, and the feasibility of resolving it through public policy. For example, let’s select unemployment as a problem that severely affects people with disabilities.

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Analyze the causes and consequences. Once the priority problem has been defined, we need to determine its causes and its consequences. For instance, unemployment is a problem that affects many people; however, it is obviously a more serious problem among people of pro-ductive age with disabilities, since this group has much higher rates of unemployment. Thus, we find that while the unemployment rate among the general population is below 10%, it is higher than 75% among people of productive age with disabilities. In our example, when we break down the causes of such a high unem-ployment rate, we find that a very important factor is the failure to hire workers with disabilities, and the generalized underestimation of the abi-lities of disabled persons in our societies (which is even greater in the economic sphere when evaluating productive capabilities). Another cause is the lack of accessible conditions (whether physical or infor-mational) in workplaces and on public transportation, affecting workers with physical or sensory disabilities (the deaf and the blind). There is also resistance on the part of employers to providing accessible conditions in the workplace. Another important cause that merits mention is rela-ted to the qualifications of the disabled work force. People with disa-bilities confront great obstacles in terms of professional and technical training due to a lack of accessible training opportunities. Added to this is the limited or complete lack of accessible transportation services, and equally inaccessible urban settings. All of these factors link together, severely reducing the supply of qualified disabled workers.

There are very clear consequences: a high rate of unemployment and economic dependency for a significant segment of adult disabled per-sons of productive age, who are forced to depend upon their fami-lies, government assistance or charity. In addition, the fact that many people with disabilities are not hired perpetuates the idea that they are productively incapable, and makes it more difficult to fight existing pre-judices that in turn lead to resistance to hiring disabled workers.

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Focus on the main cause or main causes we want to address. It is important to select one cause (or two at most) and focus on it (or on them) in order to move towards solving the problem. At the same time, addressing the cau-se that is selected should be a realistic goal. In other words, it should really be possible to solve the problem through a political action or advocacy campaign. In the example we posed above (unemployment that affects people with disabilities), proposing a profound change that eliminates all discrimination associated with disabilities would not be the right path. This problem has a socio-cultural cause that is impossible to solve through a short or medium range political advocacy plan.

In our same example, we might look at the following two causes: (1) the lack of accessible training options; and (2) inaccessible workplaces.

A detailed examination of the prioritized cause(s). To respond to the se-rious problem of unemployment confronted by the disabled population, we have now identified two causes on which to focus. Now we need to analy-ze these in order to find the best solutions.

(1) The lack of training options: We start with the fact that conditions need to be created to improve the qualifications of the disabled work force in the country, and that we need to increase the number of more skilled (technically and professionally) disabled workers. If we want this process to progress quickly, we need to explore the possibility of offering short and intensive technical training programs to people with disabilities (in other words, accessible in all senses of the word) at public (or private, with sta-te support) technical institutes, in high demand fields. In this way, a larger number of highly skilled disabled workers will be available in a relatively short amount of time.

(2) Inaccessible workplaces: This problem is associated with underesti-mating the productive capabilities of people with disabilities. Why do we need accessible workplaces if no one is thinking about hiring disabled wor-kers? The State needs to provide an example, adapting working environ-ments and insuring not only physical accessibility but also access to informa-tion and communication.

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This same process can also be carried out in the private sector, offering incentives for making such adjustments and for hiring the disabled. The State could also offer technical assistance about how to modify work settings.

Step 2. Formulate the proposal

Now that we have identified the problem and the main cause (or cau-ses), we need to define what we want to address in our advocacy work. The next step is formulating a concrete proposal that focuses on the proposed solution or solutions for resolving the key cause of the problem.

It is worth remembering—as warned by WOLA—that “identifying a pro-blem, analyzing it in terms of its components or causal factors, prioritizing and selecting the cause to be dealt with, and proposing concrete solu-tions are some of the most difficult but most important steps in planning political advocacy work. If we are unclear or imprecise about what we hope to achieve through a political advocacy campaign, our concrete achievements will be minimal and difficult to measure.”

In facing the cause of the identified problem, we can analyze various alternative solutions, but we should identify the one we consider most suitable in terms of its viability, in both economic and technical terms. This concrete and viable solution (or solutions) will be easier to define if we can consult with experts on the issue being addressed (employment, transportation, education, etc.). Organizations of people with disabilities that are involved in this political advocacy process need to form allian-ces with these types of experts.

The next step is developing the proposed concrete solution and putting it in writing. The proposal is the thing we are proposing to solve whatever is causing the problem that we have prioritized for political advocacy work. The idea is to define what we want to achieve in terms of a public policy or program, in very exact terms. Thus, the document

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containing this proposal should be clear, detailed and specific.

There are four key questions that need to be asked when formulating this text: (1) what exactly do we hope to accomplish? (2) how do we hope to accom-plish it, or through which mechanism, involving which actors? (3) what is the “space” where the decision about the proposal will be made? and (4) by what date do we want to have accomplished the proposal?

In addition to being precise and clear, the proposal should:

• Be measurable,• Be feasible (in technical and political terms),• Be equally understandable to all people, • Be motivating and unifying for the organization or coalition, • Contribute to forming and strengthening alliances and coalitions, and to mo-bilizing the most affected population, • Be achievable in the short to medium term (3-18 months),• Generate favorable public opinion, and• Contribute to solving the problem.

Step 3. Analyze the decision-making space

Now we need to figure out who has decision-making power with regard to the proposal we have developed, and what the decision-making process will be.

If we continue with our previous example (the high rate of unemployment among disabled people), we may conclude that the decision-making space is the Ministry of Labor, which has a national jobs program that does not include people with disabilities, in any form whatsoever. We also find that the Ministry has a division directly responsible for implementing this public program.

Now we must identify who is the decision-maker with the power to make a decision about our proposal, which is that this Ministry should include people with disabilities in its national jobs program (this includes direct efforts such as technical training, which the Ministry promotes through an agreement with the state technical training institute).

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When organizations of disabled persons identify the public entity and person that possess the decision-making power to respond concretely to the proposed solu-tion, they must be very clear to avoid making errors. Occasionally, their limited experience with this type of political advocacy work can lead them to incorrect identifications and to knock on the wrong doors. Demands and proposals are sometimes brought to the legislative power when they really correspond to the executive branch.

In our example here, we can conclude that the final decision-maker for our propo-sal is the Minister of Labor, in consultation with the director of this ministry’s job pro-gram. But we cannot stop with the mere identification of the final decision-maker. We must also understand the process through which the decision is made.

It is possible that based on the information obtained and with the assistance of an expert from this field, we might determine that a ministerial decree is needed to modify the national employment policy, to insure the inclusion of people with disabilities.

In this case, we will need to negotiate a concrete and well-founded proposal with the Minister, which expands the national employment policy in the way we are seeking.

Step 4. Analyze channels of influence (power mapping)

With the proposal already developed, we must now identify the power mecha-nisms and key actors who will influence the final decision. We must work, therefore, on analyzing the channels of influence and develop a power map that helps us identify the most important actors and their degree of influence, positively or nega-tively, at the moment a decision will be made in relation to our proposal.

Anytime that we are designing a political advocacy strategy or campaign, we find that there are different actors (public institutions, private businesses, legislators, civil society organizations, etc.) that have or might later develop some interest in our proposal.

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Moreover, such actors might have some influence on the final decision.

This universe of actors with different political, economic and social interests can be situated on a power map that indicates each actor’s possible reaction or posture in response to our proposal. Consequently, the actors will be classified as allies, opponents, or undecided in relation to our proposal.

In the example we have been using here, we can identify actors who would oppose our proposal. In the institutional realm, for instance, the entity that oversees the selection and assignment of state employees (Department of Ci-vil Service) could oppose it based on a negative appraisal of disabled em-ployees, if the Department—and more specifically its director—underestimates these potential employees and feels that adapting any work posts would imply high costs for the State. Similarly, an association that joins together different pri-vate sector business groups could also view the proposal negatively, since they might believe that people with disabilities lack the competent and productive qualities required in the private sector. Another public institution that might not respond positively to our proposal is the agency responsible for regulating te-chnical training, since it might be wary of the costs associated with adapting installations and course content for people with disabilities.

To continue with our mapping, the teacher’s associations and trade unions that have not taken a position and have maintained a neutral position vis-à-vis our proposal are classified as “undecided.” The objective with this group is to win them over and convert them into allies who demand that people with disabili-ties have a right to decent and inclusive jobs.

Other actors that can be won over to supporting our proposal include natio-nal human rights organizations (ombudsmen and legal aid offices), which work within state structures and are responsible for guaranteeing human rights, in-cluding the right to work. These actors can also be converted into allies of civil society’s human rights organizations.

It is also possible to identify individual legislators who can influence the Minister of Labor, either directly or through statements to the media in support of our proposal.

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It is important to remember that power mapping should not be viewed as something static, but rather as something that moves and changes. It can be affected by different political events, or by shifts in the postures of different actors, either in our favor or against us. For example, presenting a proposal to the Minister of Labor during an electoral campaign is different than doing so when elections aren’t taking place.

Step 5. Do a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) analysis

In the process of planning our political advocacy action, we need to de-termine how well our own organization or coalition is prepared, as well as the atmosphere in which we are going to be working.

To do this, we use the well-known SWOT methodology (Strengths, Weak-nesses, Opportunities and Threats). Using the SWOT, we can look inward at our own organization or coalition (in the case that various organizations have come together to carry out an advocacy campaign) to analyze both our strengths and weaknesses. We can also use the SWOT to look outward, to determine which are the opportunities and threats that are present in the setting where we will be working.

We need to be as rigorous and objective as possible in analyzing our own organization. This process also includes seeking solutions to any weaknes-ses that are detected, in order to improve our position.

1) Strengths and Weaknesses

A. Self-analysis. The first step is reviewing the internal strengths and weak-nesses of our group or coalition. This analysis should consider the following:

a. The organization of the group or coalition, in terms of its:

• Legitimacy and representativeness.

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• Coverage (the number of members, their racial/ethnic and gender make-up, and their geographic distribution).• Quality of leadership.• Capacity to gather people together and mobilize the grassroots. • Equity in participation and the decision-making authority of men and women, and of different ethnic groups. • Levels of consensus and clarity of vision and mission.• Possibilities for building alliances and coalitions.

b. Relationships of the group or coalition with:

• State institutions.• Other groups or sectors of civil society.• Media outlets.• Influential people and opinion makers.

c. The capacities of the group or coalition to:

• Conduct research.• Manage information about the issue in question and about the way the state functions.• Do strategic and operational planning.• Lobby and negotiate.• Do press work.• Do internal monitoring and evaluation.

d. Resources of the group or coalition:

• Human• Material• Economic• Technical

B. Conclusions of the self-analysis. Let’s assume that using our same example, this self-analysis process leads us to the following conclusions:

STRENGTHS: WEAKNESSES:• Strong grassroots base, inclu-ding the population affected by the problem.

• A lack of planning experience.

• Highly credible leaders. • Little understanding about how the state functions.

• The clear and unified vision and mission of our organization.

• Insufficient access to concrete and up to date information about the problems being addressed.

• Willingness to work. • Limited economic resources.

C. Identification of possible solutions to the weaknesses identified. When this internal review (self-analysis) is completed, we will have detected some weaknesses (the four in the table above). We then need to look for solutions to the weaknesses that have been detected. The following table contains examples of how to improve such weaknesses:

WEAKNESSES: POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS:• A lack of planning experience. • Organize a workshop that

provides in-depth coverage of techni-ques for planning political advocacy campaigns.

• Little understanding about how the state functions.

• Plan training workshops about the functions of the Supreme Court and the Legislative and Executive branches of government.

• Insufficient access to concrete and up to date information about the problems being addressed.

• Plan joint research with a uni-versity or research institute.

• Limited economic resources. • Develop a project and plan for seeking funding from international donors.

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2) Opportunities and Threats

Now that we have identified our strengths and weaknesses and have formu-lated some possible solutions to help our organization overcome its detected weaknesses, the next step is identifying opportunities and threats in the political scenario where we are carrying out our advocacy campaign.

Opportunities favor the campaign and enhance its possibilities of success, whi-le threats are unfavorable external factors that may pose obstacles or risks to the campaign.

When planning our strategies, it is important to know how to take advantage of the opportunities and minimize the impact of the threats.

In the following table, we summarize the most common threats and opportuni-ties, based on WOLA’s experience in Central America:

OPPORTUNITIES: THREATS:• Allies who have a strong influen-ce on decision-makers.

• An Executive branch with little openness to dialogue with the citizenry.

• A great range of media outlets (including alternative media) operating in the country.

• An Executive branch that views organized citizens as a threat.

• A general concern in national and international arenas about the issue being addressed.

• Reductions in donations from international cooperation agencies to Central America.

• Political space for mobilizations, without repression.

• Little access to data and informa-tion from governmental ministries.

• The Convention on the Rights of Disabled Persons has recently entered into force.

• Universities and research institutes show little willingness to coordinate or collaborate on systematizing concrete data about the problem that concerns us.

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Step 6. Design advocacy strategies

For the purpose of this exercise, a “strategy” is understood as a group of measures and actions that are aimed at achieving a specific ob-jective.

Here is a simple example: Let’s say that my objective is to pick a tasty orange that is growing on a high branch of a tree. I analyze the situation, and think that the best option would be to rest a ladder against the tree’s trunk and climb up. However, as I reach the top of the ladder, I still can’t reach the orange with my hands, so I grab a long pole with a “Y” at the end, and I use it to push the fruit, which falls into a bag that is attached to the end of the pole. This group of tools (the ladder, the pole, the bag), utilized in a certain way (all of this is the strategy), helps me achieve my objective. Clearly, I could have used other strategies, but this is the one I selected as the most practical and reliable based on my experience and the available tools.

Whenever we are promoting a proposal (public policy, program, ac-tion), we must convince the final decision-maker of the validity and strengths of our proposal. We must convince them through using ad-vocacy strategies. These strategies are a group of activities whose concrete objective is to convince and persuade the decision-maker.

The planned strategies and activities should be based on what we defined during the previous steps of this advocacy process, and should be varied and creative. We need to pay special attention to:

• The interests and motivations of the people identified on the power map. • The strengths and weaknesses of the core group or coalition that is organizing the campaign.

• The opportunities and threats in the political environment.

CONVENTION ON RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE WITH

DISABILITY

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Many different kinds of activities need to be carried out to try to influence the decision-making space and get a public policy pro-posal approved. These can include:

• Lobbying,• Organizing,• Education and sensitivity-raising,• Press work,• Mobilization.

1) Political advocacy strategies

A) Lobbying is a face-to-face effort to persuade the person with decision-making power to support the proposal, to motivate allies to undertake concrete actions in support of an initiative, to convince undecided persons, and to neutralize opponents. Normally it invol-ves direct visits.

Since the purpose of lobbying is to communicate with the decision-maker or his/her advisors or technical staff about our proposal, we should go to these meetings well prepared, having clearly mapped out our arguments, with copies of the documents to be delivered. We will probably have very little time to state our position, thus we should be prepared so that we can make the best use of the time available.

Before the visit, the group or coalition will need to decide on each person’s role (hopefully previously rehearsed): who among them is best suited to present the problem and the proposal, who can voice other arguments, etc. It is worth stressing that all of those present should be familiar with the proposal and the arguments that support it.

Finally, it is important to remember that lobbying work can also be a valuable source of information for future work. Moreover, this type of meeting can open up spaces for negotiating our proposal.

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B) Organizing.

This work serves to broaden and strengthen the group of people who will participate in an advocacy initiative, and builds an internal structure for the campaign that is responsive to the specific needs of the initiati-ve. Organizing should also motivate and involve the population that is affected by the problem the group is seeking to address.

Social movements do not come out of nowhere. The energy that sus-tains them needs to be directed, channeled, and focused. The main way to accomplish this is by building and consolidating networks and coalitions that will spearhead the advocacy work.

An advocacy network permits all interested sectors and individuals to participate democratically. Successful networks have good leadership, an ability to get out their message, mutual trust, and a willingness to share.

C) Education and sensitivity-raising.

The core group or coalition needs to educate the public and the deci-sion-maker about the problem it is trying to solve and about its proposed solution. The idea is to use this strategy to reach the decision-maker, other key actors, and the population that will benefit from the initiative.

The purpose is to increase awareness among the sectors that benefit from our work.

D) Press work.

To place the advocacy initiative on the public agenda and gain the at-tention of decision-makers, we need coverage in the media. Otherwise, it is as if the problem doesn’t exist. This is also true when we want to pu-blicize actions that have been carried out.

“FORUM ON INCLUSION AND

DISABILITY”

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For this reason, civil society organizations need to work with the me-dia, know which journalists are most likely to cover their issue, meet with them, inform them about the problem, send them press relea-ses, invite them to activities where the issue is being discussed, etc.

The goals of a media strategy are to situate our problem and pro-posal on the public agenda, gain credibility as a serious source of information, and produce favorable currents of thought in relation to our initiative.

E) Mobilization

Mobilization is a strategy that can be a decisive means of pressuring the person or authority who needs to make a decision about our proposal in order for it to become a public policy.

It is useful for rallying the population affected by the problem, gai-ning the attention of the press, generating political will on the part of government representatives, and opening spaces for lobbying and negotiation.

On many occasions, a good mobilization ends with positive nego-tiations between the leadership of those who are mobilizing and the main interlocutor in the advocacy work.

A mobilization is often a march or demonstration that starts at a spe-cific meeting point, travels along a predetermined route, and rea-ches a final destination where—in general—the authority or deci-sion-maker is found. However, there are other types of mobilization activities such as a permanent picket-line, which consists of people picketing during shifts and maintaining a constant pressure on a par-ticular authority at a key moment in the decision-making process. Mobilizations can be very creative, and can be given suggestive names such as “the march of silence,” “the march of wheelchairs,” “the citizen march for justice,” etc.

THE INTERNATIONAL DISABILITY CAUCUS (IDC) PLAYED A DECISIVE ROLE DURING THE DRAFTING OF THE CONVENTION

NOTHING ABOUT US WITHOUT US!

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It is important to remember when planning a mobilization that involves people with disabilities that the march should not cover too large a dis-tance, that the march route should be accessible, and that preparations should made in case of any emergency situations. 2) Searching for the most effective strategies

Given this menu of advocacy strategies, we need to select the most timely and suitable for each action being planned and carried out.

To determine the most effective approach, the core group promoting the action or campaign needs to have developed a capacity for political analysis, creativity, and on occasion political savvy.

The following table designed by WOLA outlines different strategies, their usefulness, the ways they should be employed, and some other practical advice:

Advocacy Strategies:

Strategy Usefulness How to do it Practical adviceLobbying For communicating the proposal.

• For knowing the positions of key actors and the decision-maker.• For fine-tuning the power map.• For improving arguments.• For motivating allies and per-suading the decision-maker and other undecided people.

Identify and prioritize actors to be lobbied.• Propose objectives and goals for each person. • Analyze the positions, inter-ests, and motivations of people in relation to the proposal.• Develop arguments to use with each person.• Clarify conclusions and agre-ements reached.• Evaluate the meeting.• Follow up.

Prepare sufficiently for the meeting.• Concretize agendas for meetings ahead of time. • Limit your messages or arguments to just a few central points. • Select your spokespeople carefully and agree on who says what. • Concretize agreements reached in writing.• Identify other people and ways to influence the person visited.• Follow up people visited.• Be clear about what is negotiable and what is not.• Be clear about the decision-making power or influence of the actors being lobbied.

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Strategy Usefulness How to do it Practical adviceOrganizing For defining, expanding

and strengthening the internal structure of the core group or coalition.• For organizing and in-corporating the affec-ted population into the advocacy process.

Specify the group promoting the campaign.• Define communications and decision-making mechanisms. • Define mechanisms for managing economic resources. • Meet with groups, organizations or sectors with similar interests, explaining the advocacy propo-sal to them.• Survey the group to determine time availabi-lity, and the availability of human, material and financial resources.• Create work committees.• Define monitoring and evaluation mecha-nisms.• Generate effective mechanisms for communi-cating with the affected population. • Generate concrete mechanisms for insuring the participation of the affected population.

Use creativity in com-municating your position to groups interested in supporting the proposal. • Seek out ways for the affected population to participate and contribu-te it’s own strengths.

Strategy Usefulness How to do it Practical adviceEducation and sensitivity-raising

• For generating and sharing infor-mation.• For raising aware-ness.

• Identify individuals, groups and/or sectors (target audien-ces) who need sensitivity-raising. • Propose education and sensitivity-raising objectives and goals. • Develop general arguments and positions. • Define methods, modalities and methodologies.• Organize activities.• Conduct evaluations.• Follow up.

Prioritize the target audience or audiences you want to reach. • Be aware of time and resources. • Rely upon personnel with adequate capa-bilities. • Efforts aimed at increasing awareness or educating should generate social pressure that specifically influences decision-making about the proposal, rather than in a general manner. • Be creative and find effective and inexpensi-ve work methods. • Request support from people and institutions with similar interests and outlooks.

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Strategy Usefulness How to do it Practical advicePress work • For situating the

topic in the public agenda.• For building the group’s credibili-ty as a source of information.• For generating public opinion that is favorable to the proposal. • For generating pressure on the decision-maker.

Define the objectives of the media strategy. • Specify the target audiences to be reached.• Define the message.• Analyze and prioritize which press outlets are most important. • Carry out activities that get covered by the media. • Conduct ongoing evalua-tions.

Adopt a suitable approach, based on the nature of the target audience. • Consider the content, the language, the source or messenger, the format, the time, and the place of the message. • Use creativity and be audacious, in order to attract the media and convince them of the importance of your message.• Do intensive follow up work with specific media outlets and journalists. • Provide complete and objective informa-tion, to increase your credibility as a news source.

Strategy Usefulness How to do it Practical adviceMobilization For drawing the

media’s attention to the issue. • For involving the affected popula-tion.• For generating interest in lobbying and negotiating. • For exerting pres-sure on decision-makers.

Identify and prioritize the actors you wish to influence. • Define the objectives of the advocacy work. • Evaluate your capacities to mobilize others. • Define the type of mobiliza-tion. • Determine the place, date and hour of the mobilization. • Develop messages.• Distribute tasks. • Put out a call to mobilize. • Work with the media prior to the mobilization. • Publicize the results of the mobilization.• Conduct follow up.

Plan a mobilization that helps influence the decision-maker, and that does not provoke a negative reaction. • Effectively communicate the reason for the mobilization. • Insure that the mobilization does not coin-cide with other important events, and that it takes place at a suitable moment in the decision-making process. • Insure that the mobilization demonstrates social power, and not an inability to mobilize.• Take measures to avoid repressive actions or violent confrontations. • Keep the population involved and informed after the mobilization.

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Step 7. Develop an activity plan

Now we reach a very important stage in the advocacy work: writing up an activity plan. This plan should contain the strategies and activities that the core group or coalition promoting the public policy proposal is planning to carry out, in order to create the conditions that can influen-ce the decision-making space.

1) Laying the groundwork

In the same way a farmer prepares the land so crops will grow and pro-duce a good harvest, we must also lay the groundwork for planning and developing our political advocacy actions. Let’s take a look at the steps:

• Research to fill information gaps. Having a good understanding of objective and up to date information is very important when plan-ning an advocacy campaign. We need objective information about the problem we are trying to solve, its causes, how decision-making spa-ces function, who are the decision-makers, and about the capacities and conditions of the core group promoting the action. The most ob-jective effort possible is needed here, in order to detect any information gaps or weaknesses and to be able to correct these in a timely manner. Measures here would include the corresponding investigative work and research, in order to fill any important knowledge gaps.

• Drafting the proposal summary sheet: Our proposal should be clearly written up in a one-page summary, which is the “proposal sum-mary sheet.” The following elements should be written out in a clear and concise manner: a brief description of the problem to be solved, the concrete proposal of the group or coalition, and the main arguments in favor of the proposal. This proposal sheet is also useful for fine-tuning ar-guments and reaching consensus about the core group’s ideas (it should be a mirror that reflects them all). A proposal summary sheet is especially useful for direct visits with key actors and for press work.

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• Consultation with member organizations. When an advocacy action or campaign is going to be undertaken, the core group or coalition needs to have a unified position. Thus, it is very important to consult with as extensive a group as possible about both the proposal and the advocacy plan.

• Fundraising. Another key aspect in developing an advocacy plan has to do with finances. What resources are available, and how much can the project spend? What staff is available (and if this is remunerated staff, how much will they be paid)? What are the costs of technical studies (if they are required), advisers, printing and photocopying, web costs (deign and main-tenance), office equipment and travel (transportation, lodging if necessary, food, etc.)? If fundraising is not taken seriously from the very beginning, a lack of resources can become a limiting factor leading to the failure of a good advocacy plan. Therefore, if an action or campaign is to be undertaken, a good financial strategy needs to be defined right from the start, which con-siders the resources available to the core group, and in what way additional resources will be obtained (the group’s own efforts, domestic or international donor agencies, or other sources).

• Preparation of the technical proposal. There are times when a proposal needs to be supported by technical information. In such cases, the advocacy proposal should be accompanied by a technical proposal. For example, if accessible transport is the demand, it would be important to have clear infor-mation about the costs of new or used accessible buses, the cost of adapting bus platforms or ramps, etc. Similarly, in the case of actions aimed at refor-ming or approving laws, the core organizing group should prepare a draft of the law or reform for which it is seeking approval.

2) Concrete activities to influence the decision-making space

The strategies identified in the previous step are general courses of action that the core group intends to pursue during its advocacy campaign. Now, in de-veloping the campaign plan, specific activities must be proposed that will be carried out as part of each selected strategy. This can include the following:

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Strategy ActivitiesLobbying • Direct visit with the decision-maker and other key actors.Organizing and including the affected population

• Assemblies• Meetings• Leadership workshops• House-to-house visits• Training• Institutional strengthening• Formation of coalitions• Formation of work commissions• Coordination meetings

Education and sensitivity-raising • Research• Forums• Workshops• Seminars• Publications• Videos• Popular theater• Home visits• Artistic festivals• Civic education campaigns

Press work • Press conferences• Interviews• Paid ads• Visits to editorial boards• Articles• Letters to the editor• Investigative reporting• Events to cultivate relationships with journalists (breakfasts, cocktails, etc.)

Mobilization • Marches• Take-overs• Vigils• Sit-ins• Strikes

Once the specific activities have been selected and the group figures out the order in which they are best carried out, the plan should be prepared in writing.

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The plan should specify each activity with its desired outcome, indicators, dates, the name of the person with primary responsibility for carrying it out, and the resources needed. The following table is an example for an activity plan that can be used for both preparatory activities and the activities im-plemented as part a particular strategy:

Activity Plan

Preparatory tasks

Activity Desired outcome Indicators Date Responsible person(s) Resources

Strategies/Lobbying, organizing, education-sensitivity raising, press work, mobilization:

Activity Desired outcome Indicators Date Responsible person(s) Resources

3) Concrete examples of planning

We now present two concrete examples of planning, which include both preparatory activities and political advocacy strategies. The two examples are concerned with a plan for improving access to public transport, specifi-cally the public bus modality.

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We begin with the following:

• A coalition of disabled persons’ organizations is promoting po-litical advocacy work in the country. There is a law currently on the books that requires all public transportation to be accessible to all people (including people with reduced mobility) within ten years of the law’s passage. The law has now been in force for 10 years and it has been backed up by the nation’s ratification of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which is now the law of the land.

• Until now, there have been very few accessible buses availa-ble, and the Transport Ministry’s Public Transportation Council, which is responsible for insuring compliance with this law, has done nothing to obligate public transportation companies to acquire and make ac-cessible buses available.

• The political advocacy work is aimed at pressuring the Public Transportation Council to bring the transport companies into line (sus-pending permits or concessions if they do not comply with the law), to more effectively supervise them, and to set definitive deadlines by which all public transportation units must be accessible.

- Preparatory task plan

The coalition promoting this advocacy plan for accessible transporta-tion realizes that it needs to take several steps before the strategies can be implemented.

Here is the plan for their preparatory work:

Preparatory tasks for the political advocacy plan for accessible public transportation

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Activity Desired outcome Indicators Date Responsible person(s)

Resources

Conduct research on bus accessibility- Review the registries of 720 companies that provide public transportation in the country, to determine how many buses are currently accessible.

- To know how many buses in the fleet are accessible.

- Reliable data availa-ble from the Transport Council Registry about how many buses are accessible and which bus routes they are used on (urban, semi-urban, rural).

Day 30 of the first month.

-Pedro Rodríguez -US $ XX for per diems (transportation and food expenses for the respon-sible person), photoco-pying services.

Draft the proposal summary sheet - A 3-person team will be set up (one person from each organization involved in the coalition) to draft the proposal summary sheet.

- A well-written and well-founded proposal sum-mary sheet, which will be a useful tool in political advocacy work.

- A clear and concise document. - The problem to be solved and the propo-sed solution are both clearly defined. - The summary sheet presents solid argu-ments that are both feasible and effective.

Day 15 of the second month.

-Violeta Mora,-Carlos Rodríguez and María Men-doza

- Computer and printer, work space, and per diems. - Technical and legal assistance (volunteer or pro bono).

Consultation with member organizations about the advo-cacy action- Meetings with the three organizations involved in the coalition will be organized to discuss the advocacy action. The proposal summary sheet and the planned strategies will also be presented.

- Members of the three organizations have provided input and have approved the advocacy initia-tive.

- Agreements to support the action at the three meetings. - The alliance is strengthened.

Day 30 of the second month.

- The President and Board of Directors of each of the three participating organizations.

- Fax and telephone,- Computer with Internet connection,- Printer,- Meeting rooms,- Projection equipment.

Fundraising- Budgetary estimates of the cost of the advocacy action will be made, and each mem-ber organization will specify the amount it can contribu-te. Mechanisms for attaining additional resources will also be defined.

The coalition has a defined budget for the campaign and has a fundraising plan for seeking the additional resources needed for carrying out the political advocacy plan.

- The balance of avai-lable resources. - A concrete plan for obtaining resources for the initiative. - The resources are guaranteed.

Day 15 of the third month

A Fundraising Com-mission is set up, which includes the treasurers of each organization.

- Computer and printer,- Meeting rooms.

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Activity Desired outcome Indicators Date Responsible person(s)

Resources

Meeting programmed with the Director of the Public Transporta-tion Council (CTP) to present the proposal.

- Knowledge of the degree to which this Council is open to the concrete proposal (the final decision will be up to the corres-ponding Minister).

- The political advoca-cy coalition has verbal confirmation of the CTP’s position, which can serve as the basis for planning the remai-ning actions.

Second half of the third month.

The campaign’s coordinating com-mittee.

-Telephone and fax,- Computer and printer.

- First meeting with the Minister of Transport and his advisory team.

The advocacy coa-lition outlines the problem and the proposed solution to the Minister through the proposal summary sheet.

Letter from the Minister. - Verbal confirmation of the Minister’s response. - Follow up agreement.

Second half of the third month.

- The campaign’s coordinating com-mittee.

Telephone and fax,- Computer and printer.

Activity Desired outcome Indicators Date Responsible person(s)

Resources

The three core organiza-tions convene other disa-bled persons’ organiza-tions and other interested sectors to a meeting whe-re the political advocacy initiative is presented.

Various civil society organizations and or-ganizations of disabled persons back the propo-sed campaign initiative through issuing a joint statement.

- The proposal sum-mary sheet and ad-vocacy plan have been approved and strengthened.

First week of the fourth month.

Coordinating Committee.

- Large auditorium.- Resources for trans-portation, food and lodging for those who come from areas loca-ted far from the capi-tal. - Sound system.- Overhead projector, computer and printer.

Now we will look at the planning of advocacy activities:

Strategies/Advocacy Plan for Accessible Transportation

A. Lobbying

B. Organizing

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C. Education-sensitivity raising

D. Press work

Activity Desired outcome Indicators Date Responsible person(s)

Resources

Joint activity in which organizations of disabled persons participate together with the Ombudsman and other groups (human rights, women, the elderly, child rights), to analyze discrimination against people with disabili-ties. The meeting will also be used for presenting the issue of accessible transportation and the campaign’s proposed solution.

- Other organizations know about the pro-blem and the proposal, and offer their support.

- Public state-ments issued by organizations and public institutions that support the coalition’s initia-tive.

Second week of the fourth month

Education Com-mission, made up of representatives from the three core organizations.

- Facilitators for the event.- Large auditorium.- Sound system.- Overhead projec-tor, computer and printer.

Activity Desired outcome Indicators Date Responsible person(s)

Resources

Press conference following the meeting held with the Minister.

The media learn that there are organizations demanding accessible transportation and that they have drafted a proposal to the Ministry of Transport (MOT).

6 national media outlets (print, radio, television) have reported on the meeting (results obtained by monitoring the media).

Second half of third month.

- Campaign Coordinating Committee

- Telephone and fax. - Computer and printer.

Brochure produced that presents the problem and explains the proposed so-lution in a clear and simple manner.

Sectors interested in participating in different activities know about the campaign.

Design and printing of 5,000 copies.

Second half of third month.

The coalition’s Outreach Team, with assistance from a media expert.

Money for designing and printing the brochure.

Articles written about the issue.

Three articles published, which pre-sent the problem and the proposed solution.

Two print newspapers and one digital newspaper publish articles about the issue.

Second half of the third month / First half of the fourth month.

The coalition’s Outreach Team, with assistance from a media expert.

Writers (of the articles) + technical assistance.

Paid ads to announce the “March for Public Transpor-tation for All,” inviting people to take part.

The ads inform thousands of people that a march protesting the lack of accessibility to public transport would take place.

Paid ads published in a high-circulation newspa-per.

Second half of the third month / First half of the fourth month.

The coalition’s Outreach Team, with assistance from a media expert.

Money to finance the ads.

Production of four banners whose content refers to the problem and proposed solution (for the march/for hanging in strategic points of the city).

Attractive banners are produced to inform people and to carry in the march.

Four banners designed and hung in strategic locations.

Second half of the third month / First half of the fourth month.

Outreach Team. 36 meters of fabric (double width), paint, and brushes, or funds to have the banners made.

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Activity Desired outcome Indicators Date Responsible person(s)

Resources

“March for Public Transport for All.”A march of people with disabilities and their allies, to pres-sure the Minister to respond in a defini-tive and satisfactory manner.

The Minister responds in a satisfactory man-ner to the proposal, and makes public statements about it.

800 people with disa-bilities take part in the march, from the Ca-thedral in the capital to the MOT headquarters. A positive response to the proposal.

Second half of the third month/ First half of the fourth month.

Campaign Coordi-nating Committee.

Resources for transporting the participants.2 manual louds-peakers.

E. Mobilization

4) Other suggestions for designing a political advocacy plan

• The planning group should be small but representative of all organizations involved in the process.

• It is very useful to define quantitative and qualitative indicators for the desired outcomes of each activity, to facilitate an evaluation of results and impact.

• It is advisable in advocacy initiatives to create work commissions that have clearly defined functions, even though specific individuals are assigned res-ponsibility in the activity plan. The assignment of responsibility to more than one person tends to dilute it, and in the end no one is responsible.

• It is important to insure that the dates set for specific activities in each stra-tegy follow a logical order.

• Each activity needs to be broken down into several sub-activities. It is use-ful to make an even more detailed plan, and to define the times for each sub-activity in order to meet the activity’s final deadline.

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Step 8. Continuous evaluation

Evaluating political advocacy campaigns and actions should be an on-going process of reviewing, monitoring and analyzing the planning and im-plementation of different strategies and specific activities, to determine their results and impact. The indicators we have defined provide a useful tool for ongoing evaluation processes.

Evaluation is a key element of any political advocacy process. It is an at-tempt to learn from both successes and failures in order to strengthen the ca-pacity to engage in advocacy work related to public policies and programs. It is therefore important to evaluate on an ongoing basis, from the beginning of the planning process through the end of the campaign. 5 Consequently, three aspects of the process should be included in the eva-luation: - The entire planning process,- The plan’s execution, and- The impact.

1) Evaluation of the planning process

Several general elements should be kept in mind when evaluating the plan-ning process:

• The core group’s ability to conduct research and manage information, • The quality of the analysis,• The degree to which the affected population participates.

More specifically, each step of the proposed methodology should be eva-luated:

Step 1: Identification and analysis of the problem, in terms of the importance of the problem chosen for the affected population, the depth of the analy-sis, and the degree to which the problem relates to the mission of the core group or coalition.

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Step 2: Formulation of the proposal, in terms of the contribution that the proposal will make to solving the problem; its feasibility, degree of mo-tivation and interest that it produces, and the existence of clear and realistic goals. Step 3: Analysis of the decision-making space, in terms of identification of the decision-maker, the core group’s knowledge of the decision-making process, and the identification of the best time to launch the proposal. Step 4: Analysis of channels of influence, in terms of identification of allies, undecided persons, and opponents; the prioritization of key ac-tors with most influence over the decision-making process; analysis of interests of key actors; and effective use of the information available about key actors. Step 5: SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats), in terms of objectivity and depth of analysis, and the capacity to take concrete measures that take advantage of strengths and op-portunities and overcome weaknesses and threats. Step 6: Design of advocacy strategies, in terms of variety and creativi-ty of the strategies and their effectiveness in convincing the decision-maker. Step 7: Development of an activity plan, in terms of the existence of a written plan; the feasibility and coherence of the plan; the identifica-tion of desired outcomes, indicators, dates, responsible persons and resources needed for each activity; and the intentional distribution of responsibilities within the core group to break out of traditional roles.

2) Evaluation of the plan’s execution

The implementation of the advocacy plan should be evaluated at different times throughout the campaign so that adjustments can be made as necessary. For example, an evaluation might be done af-ter a lobbying activity, after a mobilization, in response to a significant change in the political situation, and so forth. Those evaluations should

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be done at regular intervals—monthly or after a reasonable amount of time—and again at the end of a campaign. It is important to evaluate each activity in the plan in terms of whether or not it was completed and its results, always attempting to pinpoint which causes or factors contributed to an activity’s success or failure, and considering changes that could be made so that things go more smoothly and to strengthen the advocacy initiative.

WOLA provides the following table as a useful tool for this task:

Activity Desired outcomes Actual outcome Reasons or contribu-ting factors

Necessary adjustments

3) Evaluation of impact

The impact of a political advocacy initiative must be evaluated on three le-vels corresponding to the three basic reasons why we engage in advocacy:

• Solving specific problems through public policies, • Strengthening civil society, and• Promoting and consolidating democracy

Solving specific problems through public policies. On this level, the outcomes of the advocacy initiative should be evaluated in relation to the formulated proposal. This is measured in terms of concrete changes that have been achieved in laws, existing policies, programs, commitments, and in behaviors associated with the problem posed. Here, it is also important to measure the progress (or lack of progress) made in getting the issue onto the public agenda.

Comments:

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Strengthening civil society. The impact at the level of civil society refers to strengthening the core group in charge of organizing the advocacy campaign, and to the capacities gained in terms of defending the changes that have been won together with other organizations. It also refers to carrying out new advocacy initiatives that are even more am-bitious in the future.

Promoting and consolidating democracy. Finally, accomplishments and failures should be evaluated in terms of their consequences for democratization. How have they contributed to building internal de-mocracy within the core group and the coalition? Have new opportu-nities for citizen participation been improved through this process? In the case of struggles related to the situation of people with disabilities, progress in terms of prevailing underestimation and discrimination will also need to be examined.

This aspect is very important, since the ultimate goal of political advo-cacy processes undertaken by civil society organizations is to effecti-vely strengthen democracy in our nations.

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Questions for evaluation and reflection/ Chapter V:

1) In your own words, define “advocacy” and “political advocacy”: _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________.

2) What are the eight steps of a political advocacy plan? ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________.

3) What are the different advocacy strategies? Give an example of each one:_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

4) Identify a concrete problem that affects people with disabilities in your country, and design a political advocacy plan aimed at solving it. Decide if it should be coordinated by an organization or by a coalition of organizations.

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Chapter VIPolitical advocacy to promote public policies for inclusive development When the reader concludes this chapter, he/she should clearly un-derstand what public policies are, the process through which they are designed, the way in which civil society can influence this design, the strategies that can be used to influence public policies and insure an inclusive development orientation, and how a plan with this goal can be designed.

1. What are public policies?

a. Definition

In general, public policies can be seen as a response to the social de-mands that generate them. The government’s administrative institu-tions can be characterized as the “instruments” that react to these demands, through supplying policies that satisfy specific needs.

A public policy can also be defined as the program of action of a po-litical authority that has the legitimacy to govern, which has a bearing on a particular sector of society or a specific geographical area.

We should see public policies as both important practical tools (for example, providing health care services to the entire population), and as promoters of certain ethical principles (for example, defining the fact that the entire population has the same basic rights to employ-ment, education, and health, regardless of their income).

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The earliest public policy analysts focused more on the demands for policies than on the outcomes of the policies implemented, ignoring the impact that structures and actors (bureaucracy, institutions, political parties, etc.) had on the final outcomes or results.

The generation of public policies can be understood in terms of these ques-tions:

- What are the needs and demands of an interested party or community? - What public policies and programs are produced by those who govern us? - To achieve what results? - What are the means and resources needed to achieve these results?

For example:

In a particular region, many people live in shacks (built from metal scraps and cardboard). Let’s say there are 1,000 families. These families demand more dignified housing. They pressure the government to respond to their need for housing. The government studies the situation and decides—through its Ministry of Housing and Human Affairs—to design a public policy for building low-cost housing. This policy will not only respond to the needs of these 1,000 families, but also to others living in similar conditions. A budget is set, a pro-gram is designed for implementing the public policy, and the 1,000 homes are built and delivered in a specified time period to the families. (If only it were as easy as this! Clearly, we need to work to make this happen).

We often hear people talk about global plans. What are global plans? The-se are plans that present the general actions that a government wishes to undertake to advance a nation’s economic and social development. These global plans (such as a National Development Plan, or PND) contain a series of public policies and programs that a government will use to attend to the population’s different demands and needs during a specified time period.

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However, the relationship between public policies and programs should be clarified. Programs are part of public policies, and they consist of a series of operations that need to be implemented in order achieve certain objecti-ves. Or said another way, public policies are executed or put into practice through programs that are aimed at achieving certain objectives and goals.

To comply with policies, different actions are selected that are grouped into sectoral and other types of programs. The programs define the material, human and financial resources that are needed to achieve the objectives, along with the activities designed for this purpose. Programs are selected on the basis of their benefits, and through defining criteria that determine priori-ties.

THERE ARE NO VACANCIES

Three problems and Three Public policies

Inclusive Employment policyInclusive Education policy

SCHOOL SCHOOL

a)- Dengue Mosquito

b)- Unemployment of persons with disabilities

c)- Exclusion of persons with disabilities in education

Health policies to eradicate and prevent Dengue.

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b. How are public policies made?

The conception we have today of designing and applying public policies did not always exist. Prior to the 19th century, state intervention was limited to taxation and insuring a nation’s security. It wasn’t until the 20th century that the first large-scale formulation of state policies aimed at satisfying the demands of specific social sectors began. In particular, this occurred after the Second World War.

From above

Although governments characterize themselves as democratic, they tend to set policies at the highest level (“from above”) with little or no participation from the affected or interested social sectors.

They think that if they have the backing of an election (which gives them the legitimacy to govern), and the corresponding technical capabilities, they are entitled to interpret the needs and demands of the population and then respond to these through defining public policies and programs.

This has changed as social groups and different sectors have increasingly or-ganized and fought to have their needs and demands met. And more and more, we hear about or read about civil society organizations mobilizing the population to demand that their needs are met, whether these organizations represent teachers, or farmers, or shanty dwellers, or feminists, or students, or human rights activists, or environmentalists, or people with disabilities and their relatives. The result has been more democratic forms of designing and formulating public policies.

Building democracy

Civil society’s increasingly organized pressure (aimed influencing policy deci-sions) has been “democratizing” the way that public policies are formulated.

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We see this reflected in consultations where the opinions of different social sectors and groups about a range of different issues are being considered, such as when a legislative assembly or congress is studying the convenience of passing a certain law, or when a government is developing public policies.

This democratization of public policies can only increase if a general condition is met: citizen participation. Citizen participation is defined as “the involvement and influence of citizens (and the general population) in decision-making processes, in issues and activities that are related to economic, social and political develop-ment, and in the execution of such decisions, so that state actions, planning and decisions are promoted jointly by social and institutional actors.”

In order for this democratization process to take place, certain conditions must be met:

• Different actors (institutions, the private sector and the “third sector” or or-ganized civil society) must be informed and be committed, since it has been found that better results are obtained when participation is promoted and interested parties get involved.

• Governments must create a favorable environment for citizen action, which is an essential aspect of strengthening citizen participation. Moreover, laws must be approved that facilitate this citizen participation and strengthen this environ-ment.

• The participation process is not simple, and needs to be strengthened through training and instruction. Social actors (such as people with disabilities and their organizations) need to study, learn, and acquire new skills and management abilities. They must also be able to make decisions and be involved in decision-making processes.

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To participate in public decision-making processes (laws or policies), organi-zed groups of citizens may utilize a range of mechanisms including:

- Direct lobbying of legislators or decision-makers in governmental institutions;

- Indirect lobbying through social mobilization campaigns and through crea-ting alliances to promote specific agendas;

- Denouncing relevant social problems and situations ignored by the gover-nment;

- Participating in national, departmental or municipal planning councils, re-lated to both general and sector policies;

- Influencing the platforms of political candidates and political parties;

- Informing via the media, through bulletins, press communiqués, press con-ferences, etc.

- Developing legal cases to establish jurisprudence in relation to the citizenry’s economic, social and political rights; and

- Developing and publicizing research about different relevant social issues.

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2. Steps for drafting and implementing a public policy

For both learning and practical purposes (such as developing an advoca-cy plan), the public policy-making process can be divided into five parts or steps, which as we know are carried out in an ongoing and unified manner. These five parts or steps are:

1. The identification of a problem that requires public action,

2. The formulation of possible solutions,

3. The adoption of decisions by legitimate authorities,

4. The implementation of the public policy, and

5. An evaluation of the outcomes.

Identify the problem that requires public action. This can be done by a go-vernment entity, but can also result from actions carried out by some seg-ment of the affected population.

For example, if cases of dengue were to suddenly appear in different com-munities, the Ministry of Health could design a policy for addressing this health problem and could implement it through a “national program to fight dengue.”

However, in another example, it could be that the Ministry of Labor is unaware of the serious job discrimination and exclusion faced by disabled persons, despite the fact that they are capable of working and are of productive age. As a result, many organizations of people with disabilities, together with other allied groups (such as trade unions, human rights organizations, etc.) carry out actions aimed at pressuring this Ministry to include people with di-sabilities in the job programs it is implementing (or will implement), attending to their specific needs, especially accessibility

“IDENTIFYING

THE PROBLEM”

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Formulate possible solutions. Once the problem requiring public action has been identified, the institution responsible for developing the corresponding public policy begins to study different possible solutions for responding to this problem or social demand.

These possible solutions should consider technical criteria, prior experiences (for example, country “x” responded to this problem in such a way and obtained good results), and consults with interested sectors. Another very important element to eva-luate will be the cost of any proposed solutions.

The legitimate authority makes a decision. After having explored different proposed solutions, the institution responsible for designing the public policy (authorized as the legitimate institutional authority) should study all of the positive and negative featu-res of each of the proposals and determine the amount of resources available (or that can be obtained) for the policy’s implementation (assigned budget, whether resources are available from state funds, or if funding should be sought from an in-ternational loan, etc.). Once this study—both political and technical—is carried out, this authority should make a decision about the policy it is planning to adopt.

Implement the public policy. Once the policy has been defined, it needs to be im-plemented through a corresponding program. The program will define the material, human and financial resources needed, as well as the time periods and stages for implementation, including specific activities that will be aimed at achieving the pu-blic policy’s objectives and goals.

Evaluate the outcomes. When a public policy is implemented, it can be evaluated while it is being applied, and of course also when its implementation has concluded, to assess its various outcomes. The reason for evaluating a policy while it is being implemented is to be able to adjust programs, to correct errors or other factors that have been detected, and insure that the policy fulfills its objectives. When a final evaluation of a policy is carried out, the following questions should be asked: Did it resolve the problem? If it didn’t completely resolve the problem, what aspects are still pending? Was it a complete failure, and has the problem remained the same?

Government proposed policy to

combat poverty.

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Different social actors can influence each phase of policy development, using specific advocacy strategies and actions. They can:

• Help generate a public policy in response to a problem (that the state has not identified as a problem),

• Help formulate solutions, working to have their concerns and ideas in-cluded in the proposed solutions,

• Insure that institutional authorities select the best solution (in the opinion of interested sectors),

• Oversee the program through which the policy is being executed, insu-ring that it complies with time and quality requirements and favorably impacts interested sectors, and

• Participate directly or indirectly in evaluating the outcomes.

3. What should be done to promote inclusive development?

We need to stop for a moment and think about how to influence public poli-cies with this inclusive development approach.

Let’s look at the things we should keep in mind when embarking on this cour-se. We must:

• Fully understand the Inclusive Development approach;

• Be convinced that it is the best route to achieving full inclusion and development for people with disabilities and their families;

• Be informed and study public policies, programs, projects and actions that have been/will be developed by a nation’s government in relation to people with disabilities, and understand their impact (do they resolve the pro-blems, how are they resolving these problems, and for how many people?). Here it is important to obtain statistical data;

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• Study the laws and regulations in force in the nation that recognize and pro-tect the rights of people with disabilities, and determine whether or not these provide a foundation for inclusive development;

• Determine which topics are of interest to the organizations of disabled persons and their allies, in order to mobilize them around modifying a public policy or pro-gram so that it will be inclusive, or around creating a new public policy of this type;

• Study the steps involved in formulating and implementing public policies, so that we can have a positive impact on them and on inclusive development. Unders-tanding these steps will also help us define concrete strategies and actions for every stage or step in the public policy formulation process, and will make us more realistic about our available resources as a social actor;

• Develop an action plan for influencing this public policy or program, identi-fying its strategies, clearly defining the actions that will be promoted or implemented, determining responsibilities and time periods for implementation, and estimating the human and material resources available. A basic tool is available for assisting this process, which can be modified according to the particular conditions and needs of the political advocacy effort being developed;

• Evaluate the plan periodically, once a significant number of actions have been implemented, and again when the plan concludes. A tool is also available for helping to evaluate political advocacy work, either while it is underway or once it has been completed. This evaluation tool is useful for measuring the development of different actions, both in numbers (the quantitative evaluation) and in terms of characterizing and rating progress (the qualitative evaluation). This evaluation is useful for modifying the strategies and actions that are underway, or for assessing the plan’s outcomes once it has been completely implemented and thereby determine its successes and errors. This information will help us to prepare other initiatives and develop other plans in the future.

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Questions for evaluation and reflection/ Chapter VI:

1) In your own words, define a public policy:____________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________.

2) What are the advantages of democratically building public policies, rather than having them impo-sed from above? _________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________.

3) Investigate if your government has a national development plan. If it has one, get a copy of it and identify the policies it includes and which sectors they correspond to, as well as the objectives and goals it has proposed.

4) Investigate how this national development plan is focused on the population with disabilities. Is this population included in general policies, or are there specific policies that address this group’s needs and concerns?

5) Identify a concrete problem that affects people with disabilities in your country, and propose a public policy for solving it. Also define the five corresponding steps of the process.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY:

- Astorga Gatjens, Luis Fernando. Incluyendo a las personas con discapacidad en las Políticas de Desarrollo (Presenta-tion), Seminar of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), Washington D.C., November, 2004.http://www.iadb.org/int/jpn/seminars/disa/es_es/presentations/luis%20fernando%20spanish.pdf

- Berman Bieler, Rosangela. Desarrollo Inclusivo: Un aporte global desde la discapacidad (Presentation), World Bank, 2005. http://pdi.cnotinfor.pt/recursos/DI_Un%20aporte%20universal%20desde%20la%20discapacidad_RBB.doc

- Egea García, Carlos and Sarabia Sánchez, Alicia. Visión y modelos conceptuales de la discapacidad. http://www.risolidaria.org.pe/docs/ficheros/200611140005_62_0.pdf

- Equipo de Desarrollo Inclusivo para América Latina y El Caribe, ALIANZAS PARA UN DESARROLLO INCLUSIVO, Training Guide, World Bank, 2004.

- González Bombal, Inés and Garay, Candelaria. Incidencia en políticas públicas y construcción de la ciudadanía, http://www.lasociedadcivil.org/uploads/ciberteca/bombal__garay.pdf

- Instituto Nacional de Estadísticas y Censos (INEC), Costa Rica. Encuesta de Hogares y Propósitos Múltiples, Principales resultados, 2006.

- Mahbub ul Haq, El Paradigma del Desarrollo Humano. Selections from “Reflexiones sobre Desarrollo Humano,” Chapters 2 and 3, Oxford University Press.

- Metts, Robert. Discapacidad y Desarrollo (Background paper prepared for a meeting about the research agenda on disability and development), World Bank, Washington D.C., November 2004.

- Quinn, Gerard and Degener, Theresia, Derechos Humanos y Discapacidad, United Nations, New York and Geneva, 2002.

- Sartor, Aloma. Modelos de Desarrollo. http://www.frbb.utn.edu.ar/carreras/materias/ing_soc/modelos_de_desarrollo.pdf

- Sen, Amartya. Teorías del Desarrollo a principios del Siglo XXI. http://www.iadb.org/etica/documentos/sen_teori.doc

- Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), Manual for Facilitators of Advocacy Training Sessions. www.wola.org

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BUILDING CAPACI-TIES TO ADVANCE OUR RIGHTS AND INCLUSIVE

DEVELOPMENT

This manual may be reproduced in part or in its entirety for pedagogic purposes as long as original source is cited.

For more information please contact: Handicap International (HI): discapacidad@handicap-international-ac.org Phone: (505)- 2266 1364 / 2266 8419 or the Inter-American Institute on Disability and Inclusive Development (IIDI) luterag@ice.co.cr