Issue 9

DisabilityNovember 2011

APS Human Capital Matters: DisabilityNovember 2011, Issue 9

Editor’s note to readersWelcome to the ninth edition of Human Capital Matters—the digest for time poor leaders and practitioners with an interest in human capital and organisational capability. This edition focuses on Disability.

In a speech at Victoria’s Parliament House last year Graeme Innes, Disability Discrimination Commissioner, briefly mentioned the ‘soft bigotry of low expectations’ encountered by people with disability1. These few words serve to illustrate the attitudinal challenges encountered by people with disability. This phrase also serves to remind us of the need to contest old thinking, to question outmoded views, and to develop a better appreciation of the employment capabilities of people with disability.

The extent of disability in our community means that improving the workforce participation of people with disability is an issue that is increasingly garnering attention from politicians, policy-makers, providers of disability services and the broader public. The Australian Bureau of Statistics estimates that approximately 14.8% of people of working age have a disability2. Compare this figure against the 3% of ongoing Australian Public Service (APS) employees who identify as having a disability3 and an obvious and evident gap can be observed between the composition of the APS workforce and the community that it assists, supports and advises. We also know from APS employee surveys that many employees feel uncomfortable about disclosing their disability, due to uncertainty and concerns surrounding the way that they may be perceived and treated. This, in turn, is reflected in our workforce data with there being no information about the disability status of some 30% of the APS workforce4.

So, at a time when agencies are increasingly seeking to develop innovative ways of identifying and developing talent, and of addressing the inherent problems in the supply/demand equation, the under-utilised pool of available labour presented by people with disability is an attractive option worthy of further exploration. The business case for taking action in this area is such that not having a disability component to workforce development strategies is akin to sowing crops out of season in fertile soil.

Improving the attraction, recruitment and retention of people with disability also presents considerable opportunities for reassessing existing HR practices and forms of workplace support. There are whole-of-workforce benefits to be realised by developing new and innovative ways of supporting and enabling employees with disability within existing infrastructure and frameworks, such as flexible working arrangements, job design and the wider application of assistive technologies.

The challenge for HR practitioners is to determine the most effective ways of taking advantage of existing assets and networks in order to develop a much more disability-confident and disability-positive culture within Australian workplaces. Recruitment initiatives and support

1 Speech made at the launch of the Action on Disability in Ethnic Communities (ADEC) DVD ‘Can I Do It My Way’ on 7 September 2010.2 Australian Bureau of Statistics, Disability, Ageing and Carers, Australia: Summary of Findings, Cat. No. 4430;,16 December 2010.3 Australian Public Service Commission, State of the Service Report 2010–11, Commonwealth of Australia, Canberra, 2011, <http://www.apsc.gov.au>, p. 165.4 ibid.

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programs need to be based on a foundation that acknowledges the need for sustained cultural change, and for small yet significant changes in current practices, approaches and programs that address attitudinal barriers which may be held by the managers, supervisors and peers of employees with disability.

Some of these attitudinal barriers are explored in articles summarised in this edition of Human Capital Matters, along with others that consider disability from other perspectives such as the human rights and social inclusion agendas that are coming to the fore in comparable jurisdictions to ours. There is also a growing and evident sense of momentum around realising the economic and workplace benefits of improving and enabling the workforce participation of people with disability.

The vision of the Australian Public Service Commission (the Commission) in this area is one that looks past the immediate and the short-term towards a future free of the ‘soft bigotry’ referred to by Disability Discrimination Commissioner Innes. Consistent with a human capital focus the Commission sees that disability will, in time, merely be regarded as another part of a person’s overall potential to make a significant and meaningful contribution to the work of an organisation.

About Human Capital MattersHuman Capital Matters seeks to provide APS leaders and practitioners with easy access to the issues of contemporary importance in public and private sector human capital and organisational capability. It has been designed to provide interested readers with a monthly guide to the national and international ideas that are shaping human capital thinking and practice.

Comments and suggestions welcomeThank you to those who took the time to provide feedback on earlier editions of Human Capital Matters. Comments, suggestions or questions regarding this publication are always welcome and should be addressed to: humancapitalmatters@apsc.gov.au. Readers can also subscribe to the mailing list through this email address.

Canadian Centre on Disability Studies (CCDS), ‘Aging and Disability’, Government of Canada, Ottawa, April 2009, 158 pp (Final Report) (report, excluding appendices, pp. 1–37).The report examines the outcomes of the Aging and Disability project, initiated by the CCDS and funded by the Office of Disability Issues within Human Resources and Social Development Canada. It was undertaken in response to the growing population of Canadian seniors (those aged 65 years and over) and the corresponding increase in the number of seniors experiencing disabilities. Using the social model of disability as a basis, the project examined how environmental, social and attitudinal barriers militating against full participation in society by seniors with disabilities can be removed.

More particularly, the project aimed to improve outcomes for seniors with disabilities by piloting and testing an innovative and comprehensive model of change in three provinces: British Columbia; Manitoba; and Ontario. The report describes four outcomes of the project and under each outcome a number of actions pursued in realising these outcomes. The outcomes (and examples of actions) are set out below:

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Outcome 1: Developed and tested collaborative and innovative tools, evaluation methods (indicators) and mechanisms that will assist in developing more inclusive communities for seniors with disabilities (e.g. developed the ‘Liveable and Inclusive Communities’ model (or planning tool) to assist communities in transforming project interview data and evaluation findings into action).

Outcome 2: Increased capacity of policy makers, service providers, industry and community groups from the disability and seniors sectors as well as municipal and provincial governments to initiate, plan and deliver integrated, accessible and affordable housing, transportation and support services and related information that promote inclusion and community participation of seniors with disabilities (e.g. trained Regional Team Leaders and Community Working Groups in applying the evaluation tool through in-person sessions delivered in each community).

Outcome 3: Improved the system for developing and delivering integrated and accessible services to seniors with disabilities (e.g. formulated a ‘Blueprint for Action’ on liveable communities based upon the evaluation phase).

Outcome 4: Increased awareness concerning liveable and inclusive communities and the impact of disabilities on seniors (e.g. established a collaborative website to disseminate knowledge and provide a forum for sharing and networking about the project).

The report concludes that the Liveable and Inclusive Communities model is ‘Comprehensive and Inclusive’ and that it offers valuable opportunities for future action through a focus on: 1) Participation and Leadership; 2) Partnership and Coordination; 3) Knowledge and Education; and 4) Sustainable Planning.

The Canadian Centre on Disability Studies (CCDS), founded in 1995, has a wide-ranging research, educational and information dissemination role. It consists primarily of practitioners and academics working in the disability field.

New Zealand Office for Disability Issues (ODI),‘Achieving a Fully Inclusive Society 2011’, ODI, Wellington, September 2011, 21 pp.This report, by New Zealand’s Minister for Disability Issues, outlines developments over the past year in advancing the country’s disability agenda and enhancing outcomes for disabled New Zealanders. Among the main achievements during 2011 was the establishment of a whole-of-government blueprint for action on disability—the Disability Action Plan. It enunciated three priorities for government agencies in implementing the disability framework: ‘Supports for Living’; ‘Mobility and Access’; and ‘Jobs’. The Action Plan also includes initiatives designed to meet the needs of specific disabled groups. The earthquakes which occurred in the Canterbury region in late 2010 and early 2011 provided a fillip for establishing more accessible and flexible arrangements for people with disabilities (chiefly in Christchurch, the country’s second largest city).

Other initiatives discussed in the report include the Ministry of Health’s new model of disability which aims to give people with disabilities greater choice and control over their lives; ‘Be Accessible’, a program designed to inspire New Zealanders to make the most of the economic and social opportunities available in a fully inclusive society; and, perhaps most significantly, the appointment in September 2011 of New Zealand’s first Disability Rights Commissioner based in the Human Rights Commission. The appointment was initiated largely by the Minister in order to strengthen the disability agenda and better monitor observance of disabled people’s rights.

New Zealand’s activity in implementing the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (2008) is being assessed by a group comprising the Ministerial Committee on

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Disability Issues, the Human Rights Commission, the Office of the Ombudsmen, and the Convention Coalition of Disabled People’s Organisations. It met for the first time in July 2011 to discuss what had been done over the past year and what issues need to be addressed in future.

The publication focuses on how the New Zealand Disability Strategy is being implemented.

New Zealand Office for Disability Issues (ODI), ‘First New Zealand Report on Implementing the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities’, ODI, Wellington, March 2011, 58 pp.The report describes the work of the New Zealand Government in implementing the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (2008; ratified by New Zealand, September 2008). New Zealand’s vision of full participation and improved wellbeing for disabled people of all ages has developed over several decades. It is based on the social model of disability, and is now driven via a National Disability Strategy (provided for in a 2000 Act). Under these arrangements, the Minister for Disability Services must report to Parliament annually on progress, with the Strategy being reviewed regularly. A solid and comprehensive legislative framework, in keeping with United Nations Convention requirements, governs the country’s work for the disabled and the legislative framework mandating and/or supporting such work (e.g. key provisions of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 and the Human Rights Act 1993). The report stresses that disabled people should be essential partners in all activities designed to serve them better.

Despite the considerable progress that has been made in New Zealand, the report outlines a number of challenges which remain to be addressed. It summarises them as follows: disabled people are still disadvantaged, the degree of relative disadvantage being greater for women and for Maori and Pacific people; people with disabilities continue to experience social discrimination and to face difficulties in accessing services; data about disabled people is still limited—a factor which impedes high-order research and policy making in this realm; and support for people with disabilities and judgements about the appropriate means of support to be given to them can vary considerably across society.

These problems notwithstanding, New Zealand has forged effective representational frameworks for disabled people; they have an advocate in the Minister for Disability Issues supported by a Ministerial Committee on Disability Issues and an Office for Disability Issues. In addition, the Government has set clear priorities for tackling the challenges disabled New Zealanders face (these have been spelt out in the National Disability Strategy). The Government has also devised a Disability Action Plan and is pursuing reforms around three priorities:

Accessible New Zealand (enhanced community acceptance and improved access to transport and information).

Enabling Disability Supports (allowing disabled people autonomy and supporting them as early as possible).

Contributing as Citizens (ensuring that disabled people are able to achieve in education and paid employment and that they can experience access to justice and all other rights as full members of the community).

The Office for Disability Issues oversees New Zealand disability practice and reform.

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OECD, ‘Sickness, Disability and Work: Breaking the Barriers—A Synthesis of Findings across OECD Countries’, OECD, Paris, 2010, 165 pp (available in print form and electronically to OECD subscribers).This publication argues that sickness and disability policies are moving rapidly to centre stage in the economic policy agenda of many OECD nations. Since the Global Finance Crisis (GFC), the possibility that many of the long-term unemployed may end up on sickness and disability benefits has increased significantly. In this context, the authors assert, an urgent need exists to address this ‘“medicalisation”’ of labour market problems by tackling the widespread use of disability benefits across the OECD and promoting greater labour market participation by people with disability. This report summarises the OECD’s thematic review conducted over recent years of policies relating to ‘Sickness, Disability and Work’. More specifically, it analyses key labour market outcomes affecting people with disability across the OECD and draws policy lessons from the thirteen reviewed countries (Australia, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom). The authors examine the progress made by these nations in transforming their sickness and disability schemes into active support systems that promote greater labour market participation.

The report contains six chapters and a section setting out its main conclusions and recommendations. Chapter 1 reviews the principal trends and the main short- and long-term economic developments shaping disability policy. The second chapter contains an analysis of the chief challenges faced by individuals with disability and by society at large in addressing them. Chapter 3 charts the direction and extent of recent sickness and disability policy reforms, the degree of policy convergence across countries, and the impact of policies designed to address disability issues. The three subsequent chapters discuss key policy areas most in need of reform: the disability benefit system, which the report concludes is too passive in most cases, and the work incentives it provides (Chapter 4); the importance of employer involvement, especially during the critical sickness and/or disability absence phase (Chapter 5); and the responsibilities that public authorities and service providers have to facilitate timely access for the disabled to appropriate support systems (Chapter 6).

The authors conclude that the single most important element required to achieve far-reaching change in disability policy is to strengthen the financial incentives for all parties involved to increase employment opportunities for individuals with disability. More specifically, this would require the four main actors in the process to invest in, and advance the interests of, disabled people and their own interests as follows:

For sick and disabled employees and benefit beneficiaries: it must be in their interest to remain in work, to seek employment, or to increase their work effort.

For employers: it must pay to retain sick and disabled workers and help them back quickly into their job or to find them another job (there may need to be subsidies for hiring workers with health problems).

For benefit authorities: it must pay to assess people’s work capacity rigorously and avoid the granting of a benefit merely because this seems to be the easiest option.

For service providers: it must pay to reintegrate their clients into the regular labour market at a sustainable level.

In their concluding observations the authors emphasise the importance of two other issues. Firstly, the need for a better evidence base for disability analysis and policy making. They argue that rigorous evaluation of particular programs is scarce all over the OECD. They describe this as ‘a major bottleneck’ in identifying what works, and for whom. Collection of data and greater resort to evaluation and comparative studies is the solution to this problem, they conclude. The

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authors define the second issue as ‘the political economy of disability reform’, that is, reconciling the conflicting challenges of training the sick and disabled for timely re-entry to the workforce (not possible for everyone and often very costly) and the need to quicken the pace of reform in order to ensure that the sick and the disabled resume work as soon as possible within today’s tight economic environment.

This is the last publication in the OECD’s series of reports dealing with the interrelationships between sickness, disability and work. Current OECD disability review and research activity goes back to 2003, when the report ‘Transforming Disability into Ability’ was published.

Michael J. Prince, ‘Absent Citizens: Disability Politics and Policy in Canada’, University of Toronto Press, Toronto, 2009, 282 pp.The author’s central argument is that as a social group Canadians with disabilities are ‘absent citizens’. Compared to those without a disability, they experience significant cultural, material, and political disadvantages. Three broad challenges face the disabled in Canada (and in many other countries): a lack of cultural recognition; the absence of meaningful social and economic resources and opportunities; and inadequate channels of representation in the political process. In effect, real ‘citizenship’ is denied them. The author describes his primary purpose as being to describe and understand the citizenship of people with disabilities using the tools of social and political analysis. His approach derives from the conviction that disability is usually overlooked in public policy studies and that governments and employers when dealing with disability issues ignore or underestimate the importance of achieving optimal outcomes for disabled people—largely because they fail ‘to link the politics of identity and difference with the politics of social stratification and inequality’.

In advancing his arguments, the author therefore presents a multi-dimensional analysis of citizenship, which demonstrates concretely what being a ‘citizen’ does and can mean for the disabled in practice, including its often highly-contested nature. Among the themes of the book are progress made in mainstreaming disability issues and reforms, the composition of the disability community, and the participation of people with disabilities in both the electoral and policy processes. The author asserts that the starting point for comprehensive and enduring change would be legislation in the form of a National Disability Act, something strongly recommended in 1996 by a federal government task force on disability issues. Steps have been taken towards introducing such legislation (especially since 2006), though it has yet to be enacted.

Michael J. Prince is Lansdowne Professor of Social Policy in the Faculty of Human and Social Development at the University of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.

Arie Rimmerman and Shirley Avrami, ‘Israel’s Equal Rights for Persons with Disabilities Law: Legal Base, Process and Impact’, ‘International Journal of Disability, Community and Rehabilitation’, Vol. 8, No. 3, 2009.The authors assess the effectiveness of Israel’s Equal Rights for People with Disabilities Law 1998. They begin by tracing attempts to develop a set of laws for people with disabilities during the 50 years following the establishment of the Israeli state in 1948 when no ‘integrative and consistent disability policy’ was formulated. Some legislation passed over this period made provision for the needs of the disabled in specific contexts (e.g. Work-Related Disability Law 1954). However, as late as the 1980s, legislation likely to encompass disability provision—chiefly the Equal Opportunities in Employment Law 1988—ignored the concerns of the disabled.

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The article outlines the importance of the 1998 legislation for people with disabilities. It contained ‘fundamental’ and ‘general’ principles (e.g. the right to participate actively in society) and discrimination provisions as well as chapters devoted to obligatory practice in areas such as employment (‘reasonable accommodations’ in the workplace) and public transport services. The Civil Service along with other employers with more than 25 employees must also promote ‘appropriate representation’ of persons with disabilities in workplaces. In addition, the authors discuss the activities of the state-funded Commission for Equal Rights of Persons with Disabilities and a number of new pieces of legislation which followed the 1998 Act; these include the Rehabilitation of Persons with Psychiatric Disabilities in the Community 2000, which established the right of a person with a psychiatric disability to access a comprehensive rehabilitation program. The authors conclude that, although the disability change process inaugurated in 1998 is still running its course, the legislation has ‘profoundly changed’ the nature of public discourse and practice about persons with disabilities—for the better.

Professor Arie Rimmerman is based at the School of Social Work, University of Haifa, Israel and Professor Shirley Avrami is Head of the Research and Information Centre at the Israeli Parliament (the Knesset).

UK Office for Disability Issues (ODI), ‘Involving Disabled People in Social Research’, (Report by Martin Farmer and Fraser Macleod), ODI, London, August 2011, 62 pp. The Office for Disability Issues is committed to involving disabled people and their representative organisations at all stages of public sector activity which aims to improve outcomes for people with disabilities. The publication is designed to be used by public sector social researchers involved in funding, conducting or managing such social research. It provides advice on how to involve people with disabilities throughout the research process and sets out ways of making fieldwork accessible to individuals with different types of impairment. One of the Guide’s main aims is to assist researchers in engaging disabled people more in devising and delivering services tailored to their needs. This guidance is mainly relevant to projects where disability issues or the views of disabled people are a specific focus rather than where disabled people are more likely to fall within the wider sampled population.

The Introduction describes the benefits of greater levels of involvement by disabled people with this significant area of social research. Chapter 2 outlines definitions of disability. In Chapter 3 the authors provide advice on how best to determine the appropriate level of involvement by people with disabilities. The fourth chapter outlines practical steps for involving disabled people at every stage of the research process. Guidance on designing research that is accessible to, and inclusive of, people with disabilities is set out in Chapter 5. The final chapter contains practical advice on how to ensure that the various methods of survey data collection can be made more accessible to a sample that includes individuals with different impairments.

The authors make it clear that—like disability organisations and public sector disability planners—they base their work on the ‘social’ model of disability rather than the ‘medical’ model, whereby environmental, attitudinal and organisational barriers rather than the disabled individual’s health condition or impairment is considered to be the principal cause of their disability. In the authors’ view, the social model empowers disabled people and encourages society to be more inclusive.

The Office for Disability Issues implements Government policies and programs aimed at achieving equality for disabled people.

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UK Office for Disability Issues (ODI), ‘Public Perceptions of Disabled People’, (Report by Luke Staniland), ODI, London, January 2011, 103 pp.The report is based on the findings of the 2009 British Social Attitudes Survey (BSAS); the last such survey was conducted in 2005. As a party to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (2008), and as part of a concerted plan to improve current perceptions of people with disabilities and the ‘disability legacy’ of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, the ODI has included a module of questions in the BSAS. Respondents were asked questions along five themes:

1. How much prejudice they think there is towards disabled people.2. How often they think of disabled people in a range of different ways.3. If they think disabled people can live as full a life as non-disabled people can, and if not,

why not.4. How comfortable they think most people would be if someone said something negative

about disabled people in different situations.5. How comfortable they would be in interacting in a range of different situations with

disabled people who have different impairments.

Survey results revealed that attitudes towards disabled people had improved overall since 2005, though prejudice towards people with disabilities remains widespread. Almost eight out of 10 respondents felt that there is either a little or a lot of prejudice against disabled people. Nevertheless, the same number thought that most people would feel fairly or very uncomfortable if someone said something negative about disabled people—in any social or work environment. The level of comfort people reported if interacting with disabled people varied depending on both the type of impairment and the context of the interaction. Overall, the data suggested that people with learning disabilities or mental health conditions are more likely to encounter prejudice from members of the public in their day-to-day lives than those with sensory or physical impairments. One of the main findings is that no clear relationship is apparent between age and prejudice. Generally, however, it was people in the youngest (18 to 24 years) and oldest (65 years and over) age groups who were least likely to be comfortable in interacting with disabled people.

Overall, respondents with higher levels of education and those with higher incomes had more positive attitudes towards disabled people. Women and public sector employees displayed more positive attitudes towards people with disabilities than did men and private sector employees. The study cautions that blanket assertions that people have either ‘negative’ or ‘positive’ attitudes towards disabled people do not bear scrutiny. Respondents’ demographic characteristics interacted with both the situation in which a disabled person is encountered and their impairment to influence the attitudes people hold towards disabled individuals.

The Office for Disability Issues oversees Government policies and programs designed to achieve equality for disabled people. At the time of writing, Luke Staniland was a Senior Research Officer at the ODI

The White House, ‘Executive Order 13548—Increasing Federal Employment of Individuals with Disabilities’ (26 July 2010),The passage of the Americans with Disability Act (ADA) 1990 was a landmark event for disability rights within the USA and internationally. The ADA recognised that discrimination against disabled people in the form of entrenched unequal treatment and deep-rooted patterns of segregation and isolation were the major problems facing people with disabilities—not their

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individual impairments. Accordingly, it barred discrimination against disabled people in employment, public services, ‘public accommodations’, and telecommunications. Since then, many nations have passed disability laws, with the steady movement from ‘a social welfare approach’ to ‘a human rights approach’ being exemplified in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (2008) (T. Degener, ‘Disability Discrimination Law: A Global Comparative Approach’, in Disability Rights in Europe: From Theory to Practice (2005), quoted in A. Rimmerman and S. Avrami, p. 1 (see separate summary above)).

Substantial subsequent work was undertaken by the US Federal Government aimed at increasing the numbers of its disabled employees (e.g. President Clinton’s 26 July 2000 Executive Order relating to federal employment of people with disabilities). President Obama in Executive Order 13548 of 26 July 2010 set out his administration’s commitment to recruit more people with disabilities within five years and to accompany this with specific goals for hiring individuals with targeted disabilities. This framework—overseen jointly by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB)—required agencies to develop action plans for hiring people with disabilities and to submit them for OPM and OMB scrutiny by 11 April 2011.

Agencies were also required to nominate a Senior Executive Service officer responsible for implementing the Action Plan. The Department of Labor’s Office of Disability Employment Policy developed a toolkit to assist agencies in complying with the Executive Order, specifically in the areas of recruitment, training, creating a welcoming environment, and retaining people with disabilities.

Parallel initiatives and work being undertaken to enhance opportunities for disabled people within the public sector environment (and more broadly) include National Disability Employment Awareness Month (initiated by President Obama in October 2010), and a stronger focus by government agencies on complying with Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act which requires them to make their ICT systems more accessible to individuals with disabilities.

The Obama Administration has embarked on a number of new, and built on earlier, disability programs and initiatives.

World Health Organisation (WHO) and the World Bank Group (WBG), ‘World Report on Disability 2011’, WHO, Geneva, August, 2011, 350 pp (report, excluding appendices, pp. 1–271).This report, the first of its kind, extends the framework for change established by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (2008). The report explains that more than one billion people in the world live with some form of disability, nearly 200 million of whom experience considerable difficulty in functioning. In future, the WHO and WBG argue, the higher risk of disability in older people as well as the global increase in chronic health conditions such as diabetes and mental health disorders will present considerable challenges for disabled people, governments, health systems and employers. In order to achieve for disabled people the quality of life that lies at the heart of the 2015 Millenium Development Goals, the report emphasises the need to further empower people with disabilities and to remove the barriers they are required to confront.

Accordingly, the report makes several recommendations for all stakeholders at the local, national and international levels—governments, civil society organisations and disabled people’s representative bodies—to create enabling environments; develop rehabilitation and support services; ensure adequate social protection; devise inclusive policies and programs; and enforce

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new and existing standards and legislation to benefit both people with disabilities and the wider community. Professor Stephen Hawking, in his Foreword, states that the report will be an invaluable tool for policy-makers, researchers, practitioners, advocates and volunteers working in disability. The report’s coverage of international disability challenges and work designed to address them is highly comprehensive, and in many respects exhaustive, providing as it does definitions of disability, a global picture of disability, and the implications for the disabled of factors such as general health care provision, rehabilitation services, assistance and support opportunities, the key constituents of positive ‘enabling environments’ for the disabled, and the role of education, work and employment in improving the lives of people with a disability.

As well as identifying gaps in knowledge about disability in global jurisdictions and stressing the need for further research and development, the report makes nine recommendations for disability reform, to be implemented individually and/or collaboratively by: governments; United Nations agencies and development organisations; disabled people’s representative bodies; service providers; academic and other research institutions; the private sector; the community; and people with disabilities and their families.

Recommendation 1: Enable access to all mainstream policies, systems and services. Recommendation 2: Invest in specific programs and services for people with

disabilities. Recommendation 3: Adopt a national disability strategy and plan of action. Recommendation 4: Involve people with disabilities. Recommendation 5: Improve human resource capacity. Recommendation 6: Provide adequate funding and improve affordability. Recommendation 7: Increase public awareness and understanding of disability. Recommendation 8: Improve disability data collection. Recommendation 9: Strengthen and support research on disability.

The World Health Organisation is the principal body directing and coordinating health policy and activity within the United Nations system. The World Bank Group refers to a collection of five financial organisations which make development loans to nation-states, in general poorer ones.

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