The key questions for discussion on this theme were:

• Why are partnerships needed between DPOs and CBR?

• What are the barriers to such partnerships?

• What strategies are needed to build more effective partnerships between DPOs and CBR?

At the outset it was clarified that “DPO” meant an organization initiated by persons with disabilities where more than 50% of thedecision-making body is comprised of persons with disabilities.

Need for partnerships between DPOs and CBR

Involving persons with disabilities from the planning stage of any programme helps to make the programme more relevant. 

“After the earthquake, we gave wheelchairs to five or six persons with disabilities. And after one week, when we visited that area, we don’t find any wheelchair. We asked them, ‘Where are the wheelchairs?’ They said, ‘We sold the wheelchairs and got donkeys because it’s more accessible for us.’”

Most CBR programmes work with persons with disabilities from poor communities, while many large DPOs that are urban-based, have a weak link with people from poor communities. If one takes the definition of a DPO as stated above, it means that DPOs do not necessarily have large programmes at the macro-level. Many CBR programmes have a role to play in building up SHGs that are also DPOs at the micro-level. CBR is an “agent of change” that can build the capacity of micro-level DPOs and link them with the larger groups at different levels. 

“We have a few DPOs-they cannot raise their voice stronger in the community or in the local level or national level. So that’s why they need partnerships - it is important to make them to have strong voice to advocate for their needs.”

Partnership between DPOs and CBR is important because DPOs are more aware of the needs of persons with disabilities, and more involved in major advocacy issues such as CRPD. They are better able to protect their own interests. Consultation with DPOs will expand the CBR network and power base for persons with disabilities. 

DPOs and CBR programmes have their own strengths, which they need to share to empower each other and become inclusive. This leads to a win-win situation where programmes become more sustainable. It will also help in achieving the goals of inclusion and mainstreaming of people with disabilities into all aspects of community development.

Barriers to partnerships between DPOs and CBR

There is a gap in understanding between large DPOs and CBR, a lack of awareness about each other’s current strengths. Many DPOs see CBR as a mere service delivery mechanism in rural areas, while DPOs themselves are seen as urban-based and elitist, focusing only on advocacy with little knowledge of development issues or realities faced by a large number of persons with disabilities who live in poverty. The larger DPOs at the national or international levels are unaware of the current understanding of CBR as an inclusive, rights-based approach. This gap in understanding has led to some DPOs being “allergic” to CBR.

At the grassroots level where many CBR programmes work, poverty is the greatest challenge faced by persons with disabilities and their families. 

“I cannot afford to lose even a day’s work in caring for my crippled child - loss of a day’s wage means 3 days of starvation for my entire family.”     “If our cow does not return by 6 in the evening,  one of my family members goes in search of the cow because it gives milk and we earn money from it. But no one will come in search of me if I do not return home for few days.”

Under such circumstances, persons with disabilities have limited access to opportunities and resources, have limited awareness and capacity, and little chance of organizing themselves into advocacy or rights groups. Even in places where there are SHGs of persons with disabilities, they have limited capacity to forge links with the government or with the larger DPOs at regional or national levels. 

“In some places there are no DPOs at all, or no SHGs in those communities.” 

 “We still lack leadership skills. So yes, we have one DPO and we have different branches, but we have no capacity to lead. Even the SHGs we create, we cannot find the leaders for the group. When we define the leader of the group and we come together, we have nothing to discuss.”

“In our country, there are many mountainous areas, remote areas. Between the house and the next house is some kilometers. How can they gather together for forming a group or DPO? I talk with many communities, persons with disabilities, and they said that they could not, because it takes half a day to travel to meet each other. It’s really a challenge. In the big city, in some more other areas it’s more convenient. It’s in the remote area and mountainous areas it is really difficult. It cannot be applied anywhere and everywhere in the world, I think”.

Some DPOs and CBR programmes tend to focus on their own outputs and their own development, so partnerships are not a priority for them. As a result, they are not aware of the advantages of sharing their strengths.

Many CBR programmes in different countries are still continuing with a welfare and charity approach and need to have their capacity built to shift to a rights-based approach. Some DPOs who started CBR also follow a charity-based approach.

Many DPOs do not practice the philosophy of inclusion; they tend to focus on their own members (often single impairment groups) and exclude others. They also exclude all persons without disabilities, losing the advantages of a combined, collaborative effort towards inclusion of persons with disabilities into the development process.

In some countries, DPOs that are funded by government, compete with each other for funds. 

“We have about 5-7 leaders with disabilities in our country - each of them try to establish their own national assembly or national organization. So we have 5 or 7 national organizations now and the aim of these activities is in only big grants, not collaboration, not including different types of persons with disabilities, just to get big money.”

In many countries, governments do not work with DPOs and CBR is not included in national policies and programmes. Key stakeholders from the government and international NGOs have little awareness about CBR and about DPOs. In some countries, political problems make it difficult to organize groups at any level.

“In our country we cannot register the groups that we form.”

“We have some DPOs existing right now, but we do not cover all the area of the country, especially in the rural area and remote area. The problem is that the concept of the DPO is not spread into the rural areas. And another problem is the pressure from the local authority and political parties.”

Strategies to build effective partnerships between DPOs and CBR

Key stakeholders in governments, international donors, local NGOs, international and national DPOs need to be educated to understand CBR as it is defined today, as a rights-based approach, in line with the CRPD.

Governments, including local government authorities, should be made aware of the importance of CBR and DPOs; DPOs should advocate and work with governments to promote CBR and other programmes for persons with disabilities in their countries through appropriate policies and legislation.

“In my province we have CBR. We set the strategy for persons with disabilities for the whole province with the support of all NGOs in that area. The CBR committee is chaired by the governor of the province. This way we are able to work towards the same direction harmoniously”.

Although in some countries, government CBR programmes tend to be top- down, they can be educated about the importance of “bottom-up” approaches and consultation with DPOs. 

“Some people criticize the top-down approach, but it has been effective in our country. It is very important that we must make clarification that the government is there, because they are needed to be there, because they are a part of this development. At the same time, initiatives from the community must be respected. So we can use a twin-track approach: can come from the bottom up, and can be from top to bottom. But if we use the top-to-bottom, we must make sure, we must clarify to the government that they should respect the community initiative. And government support is very important to make it really sustainable. Of course, this is not happening all the time, but at least we know that we should work with the government.”

Each country should develop a resource directory of existing DPOs, CBR programmes and other resource organizations working in the disability sector, and work towards networking and developing partnerships between the different groups, at different levels. 

“We have one worker work in one district. Each field worker has to identify all service providers in the district, they have to contact them and ask them what services are available for people with disabilities. So, in five provinces, which is more than thirty districts, we have all lists of service providers in our location, so people can reach these services in their areas”

Each country should generate and document good examples of partnership: of DPOs promoting CBR; of CBR partnering with and promoting DPOs.

“We have community development committee for people with disabilities, consisting of persons with disabilities from the community itself, the local government authority, and the village leader, community leader, and also the resource person in the community. They try to make plans to fulfill or to meet their group’s needs or group’s demands, and also can find some small fund from the local funding sources. So, this is the one small example of partnership, and I think that it might be a strategy for longer sustainability”.

 CBR programmes should build the capacity of persons with disabilities through SHGs, and link them with the large DPOs at different levels. 

CBR programmes should consult/involve DPOS in their regions/countries in programme planning and implementation. The roles and responsibilities of the partners, especially persons with disabilities, need to be clearly defined.   All training for CBR programmes and DPOs need to emphasize the importance of partnership for inclusion and long-term development of persons with disabilities.

CBR programmes must hire persons with disabilities as staff at different levels, especially women with disabilities. DPOs can help CBR programmes in such recruitment.

CBR training programmes must use materials developed by DPOs in their training programmes.

“When we wanted to develop some information and resource center material, education and communication material for dissemination, we involved DPOs and we asked them to make the material on CBR. “You’re the expert, you can make that.” And then they developed, we asked them to distribute in DPOs and different organizations related to DPOs or persons with disability directly, “You have direct link.” So through this approach, we involve them in CBR and ask them to work on information, education and communication material.”

CBR programmes should share their resources (financial, material, information) in accessible formats with DPOs that they promote at the grassroot level.

DPOs must act as the bridge between governments and SHGs promoted by CBR programmes from the grassroot levels. DPOs must make the effort to make contact with CBR programmes in their countries for this purpose.

“And sometimes when we (DPOs) advocate some big issue, for example, CRPD or some new laws, SHGs do not support us. They call us “theoretic”. They do not understand what we do for them. It’s not about real life. We should also make the CBR programme more understandable for people who work in DPOs, something realistic, something near to real life because things like the matrix, when we talk about it, it will be too far from people”.

Donors must be educated about the importance of CBR and DPOs. DPOs can play a role in accessing more resources for CBR.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Interview corner

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

What is the key to promote PWD’s participation in community development in the Asia-Pacific?

Dame Carol A. Kidu, Minister, Department for Community Development, Papua New guinea

Before the CBSHOD (Sub-Regional Training Seminar on Capacity Building for Self-help Organizations of Persons with Disabilities) in 2007, I had no idea how many persons with disabilities were actually in my home community. I felt very ashamed as a person, as a member of parliament, and as the Minister. I really did not know because persons with disabilities are often hidden in the community. This experience has let me work hard on disability. In Papua New Guinea, it is impossible for the government to deal with all aspects of disabilities. Moreover, it would divide communities because of money and jealousy if communities depend on other resources. In this sense, I believe the only way is to empower people in communities. They should never just rely on services. Sometimes there is too much assistance from outside. The government is responsible for policies, and our policy should be inclusive. There are many areas of social development, but again, the community-based empowerment process is the only approach that can support persons with disabilities in Papua New Guinea.

Mr. Balakrishna Venkatesh, Timbaktu Collective, India:

Persons with disabilities belong to different classes of society. The representation of the elite persons with disabilities in CBR is feasible. Whether they will do or not is open to question. The reasons are several, but not being able to see CBR as a tool for delivering the aspirations of CRPD can be singled out as one main reason. If we mean representation of the poorer constituency of disability in CBR, we need to understand the plight of the poor today. Just to take one example, farming, the main stay of the majority of the poor people in low income countries is becoming unviable; removal of subsidies, high cost of even purchase of seeds, removal of price control on food and so on. The incidence of farmers' suicide in India bears testimony in this trend. Persons with disabilities belong to these families. What impacts the non-disabled poor, impacts persons with disabilities and more grossly.

Ms. Geraldine Pilapil Ruiz, Executive Director, National Council on Disability Affairs, Philippines:

In promoting persons with disabilities’ participation in CBR in the Asia-Pacific, the key is an accessible environment. It does not mean accessibility of the physical environment only. In addition to accessing the physical environment, it includes access to health, education, livelihood, the social aspect and empowerment; meaning full implementation of accessibility according to the universal standard. Accessibility in this sense does not exclude anybody.

Mr. Chapal Khasnabis, Technical Officer, Department of Violence and Injury Prevention and Disability, World Health Organization (Geneva), India:

It is very important. Without persons with disabilities’ active participation, CBR cannot be sustainable. We have to totally believe in that “nothing about us without us”. So persons with disabilities’ participation in CBR is a must. We also need to see participation takes place from across society, from rural to urban, irrespective of their social economic background. To make it possible, you have to see that persons with disabilities have the means to participate.

Ms. Christina Parasyn, Inclusive Development Policy Officer, Disability Taskforce, Australian Agency for International Development, Australia:

The key to persons with disabilities’ participation is for them to actually participate and be active and central in everything to do with CBR. Persons with disabilities know themselves, their family and their own culture best so it is important to respect and value people’s uniqueness, culture and context to ensure participation in CBR.  The Australian government is committed to the participation and inclusion of persons with disabilities which is why the government has developed the “Development for All” strategy. The Australian Government recognizes that to achieve the targets set in the Millennium Development Goals and reduce poverty, we need to recognize and respect persons with disabilities as key players in development. I think sometimes in Asia Pacific forums such as this, the people and countries in the Pacific are underrepresented and therefore we miss out on learning from the Pacific experience. There are many different regions with a lot of diversity and information to share. We need to continue to respect, understand and learn from each other for CBR to work

Ms. Venus Ilagan, Secretary General, Rehabilitation International (New York), Philippines

The key factor to promote the participation of persons with disabilities in Asia-Pacific is to acknowledge the fact that they have a lot to offer in terms of successful implementation of this work; that persons with disabilities should not only be seen as service users or consumers. They have to be seen as part of management, as part of the service providing initiatives. So they should be part of management. We always say that persons with disabilities are the experts of their own situation. Nothing about disability without disabled persons and they should be seen as a resource which can ensure the success of the initiatives.