Including disabled people in poverty reduction work: Nothing about us', without us

This article argues that the exclusion of disabled people from international development organizations and research reflects and reinforces the disproportionately high representation of disabled people among the poorest of the poor. The paper commences with a brief exploration of the links between impairment, disability, poverty, and chronic poverty, followed by a discussion of ways in which disability is excluded from development policy. Evidence of the incidence and distribution of disability is then presented. In the final section, the ways in which different institutions challenge poverty and exclusion among disabled people is reviewed. Survey evidence of the limited inclusion of disabled people within development institutions and policies is presented. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.