Working together to address disability in a culturally-appropriate and sustainable manner

Disability has an enormous impact throughout the world. An increasing amount of important disability research and practice is being undertaken in low-income settings; however, success and sustainability of programmes in these contexts can often be challenging. We share lessons from our experiences.

We reviewed past literature and international consensus statements relating to disability and development practice. We then held several face to face and email discussions to document the key lessons we have learnt from working in this context. We report on these in this paper.

The key lessons are to invest adequate time and develop trusting relationships, undertake sufficient consultation and collaboration, include and empower persons with disability, and view capacity building as a two-way process.

Improving the lives of persons with disability in development contexts is likely to be best achieved through processes that are inclusive, owned and driven by local communities.