okay a warm welcome to you all for
joining us tonight
for this webinar the inclusion of people
with disabilities in social protection
for COVID-19 recovery and beyond
i'll be your moderator tonight my name's
Felicity O'Brien and I work in the
social protection section
in the human development and governance
division in the Department of Foreign
Affairs and Trade
and today we will have two sign language
interpreters
signing an international sign language
for you and along the bottom of the
screen you will
also see the option to turn on your
closed captions
it's on the right hand side of your
screen down the bottom
and we'll be recording the webinar today
and that will include a full transcript
of all the discussions and slides which
will go up on the socialprotection.org
website in the following days
so this is the 30th webinar of the
Social Protection Responses to COVID-19
webinar series
the series is joint effort initiated by
the
International Policy Center for
Inclusive Growth on behalf of the German
Federal Ministry for Economic
Cooperation and Development
and the Australian Department of Foreign
Affairs and Trade
and this series has been a collaboration
with the aforementioned partners
the socialprotection.org platform and
also in cooperation with other partners
and organisations
the webinar series is part of an
initiative with two other major
components
a collaborative mapping of country news
and documents disseminated weekly
through a dedicated newsletter
and documents
disseminated weekly through a dedicated
newsletter and an online community on
the topic to systematise information and
foster discussion
join the online community Social
Protection Responses to COVID-19 task force
to learn more about the webinars and
find out how you can collaborate and
keep updated on
all the future webinars the next webinar
of the Social Protection
Responses to COVID-19 series will take
place on Thursday the 10th of September
the focus for this webinar will be on
gender-based violence and social
protection responses
so don't forget to register and you
should be able to do that in the chat box
sometime during or after the
webinar tonight
so we have a fantastic and diverse panel
of speakers for you today
which I will introduce
shortly
the format for the webinar will be
first of all an
overview of social protection response
to COVID-19 and key elements to consider
for COVID-19 inclusive recovery and then
we'll hear
some country perspectives from
representatives from
India Kenya Timor-Leste and Indonesia
and then at the end we'll have a
question and answer session to finish up
so introducing our panel tonight first
up we'll have Alex Cote
who is from the joint UNPRPD
ILO and UNICEF Inclusive Social
Protection program
Alex is the co-founder of the Center for
Inclusive Policy
and participated in the negotiation of
the convention of the rights of persons
with disabilities
he's been working tirelessly on these
issues ever since
and currently he's involved in
coordination of the joint
UNPRPD-ILO-UNICEF Inclusive Social
Protection program
then from India we have Meenakshi
Balasubramanian co-founder of equal center for promotion
of social justice
in Chennai Tamil Nadu
after um our Indian representative we
will have Fatma Wangare
from Inclusion Africa Fatma is a mother
to a daughter with an intellectual
disability
she is the regional coordinator for
Inclusion Africa
which is a pan-african regional network
of persons
with intellectual disabilities and their
families she's one of
our bridge convention on the rights of
persons with a disability
and sustainable development goals
we also have Joaozito dos Santos from
Ra'es Hadomi Timor Oan
Joaozito has been active in the promotion
of the rights of persons with a
disability in Timor-Leste for some 15
years
first with the leprosy mission and then
with the national DPORHTO which he established
with the partners Joaozito is a lifelong
learner and is also studying law at the
Peace University in Delhi
and we thank Joaozito for missing his
classes tonight to be here with us
Karishma Huda from Makhota program in
Indonesia will be our last speaker
tonight
and karishma works as a social
protection and labor market specialist
with Makhota an Australian
Government funded program
supporting the Government of Indonesia
to improve its social protection system
and policies she has a special interest
in the life cycle based social
protection issues
for children elderly and people with a
disability
so we encourage the audience to send in
questions during
the webinar tonight we will try our
best to address all the questions
in the Q&A session at the end of the
webinar
if we don't get to all of them we'll
make sure that we prepare some written
responses to the questions
which will be published on the website
along with the recording of the webinar
in the next couple of days
please also find in the chat bar a link
to join the Social Protection Responses
to COVID-19
task force the online community through
the sp.org website
you can also participate in the
follow-up discussions about the webinar
by logging on to the website
so COVID 19 has highlighted the
inequality gaps
and disempowering structures in all
societies
drawing attention to the reality that
people with disabilities
in particular have been living in the
intersections of poverty and exclusion
for too long
most persons with a disability do not
have social protection coverage
and estimates are that less than 30
percent of people with a severe
disability globally
have any social protection coverage at
all
it is however an exciting time filled
with opportunity for us all
working in the area of inclusive social
protection there is a definite increase
in focus on
discourse around social protection
systems and policies
and how to ensure they are including as
many citizens as possible
who are vulnerable to falling into
poverty including persons with a
disability
tonight we will hear from our speakers
about the gaps the barriers and the
opportunities
that they are seeing to the full
inclusion of persons with disabilities
in social protection and complementary
services
to ensure their full dignified and
effective participation
and inclusion in our societies globally
so without further ado I would like to
now pass over to our first speaker Alex
take it away Alex thank you very much
Felicity and thanks
to to all of you to join us
so as Felicity just mentioned
a person with disabilities across
countries
and regions were facing severe
inequalities before
COVID-19 crisis compared to person
without disabilities
across the life cycles person with
disability are more likely to be poor
to face catastrophic expenditure to be
victim of violence
and they are less likely to be economic
directive to be resilient to shocks
we have seen in the last financial
crisis how
in OECD countries they were among those
who lost most work
and had most difficulty getting back in
the labor market
and they are also less likely to attend
and complete primary and
secondary education
persons with disabilities face barriers
and lack of support across countries and
region
and those generate extra costs that
prevent
their economic empowerment they may have
to spend money
on specific disability expenditures like
assistive device personal assistance
sign language or they will have
to spend more on general items
healthcare is is a big issue
but also transportation since most
public transport are not accessible
they often have to use private mode of
transportation which generate extra cost
and they are a long list of specific
general items on which they have to
spend more but they also face
significant indirect cost
less employment opportunities less
education opportunities and
resulting in lower earning for person
with disabilities
but also for their household we know
that
in average household with persons with
disabilities especially children with
disabilities
tend to earn less income than those
without
disabilities and one of the key reasons
is basically the fact that there is a
loss of earning
or education opportunities for family
members who provide support and our
caregivers
and those disability related costs
can have a different impact depending on the way we measure
I just project on the screen a
graph representing the disability
related cost
in South Africa 2015 as estimated by one
of the few study we have in low and
middle income countries
the blue bars show the minimum cost it's
basically cost faced by people
staying at home where most of the
support is provided by family members
the orange bar show the cost that people
face when they try to participate and we
are not talking about extravagant
participation but
just education seeking work accessing
basing services
and what we see is that for the
diversity of persons with disabilities
the minimum costs are often below the
poverty line
but as soon as people with disabilities
seek participation
trying to find a job to keep a job or to
us access basic services
their disability related cost skyrocket
four times the poverty line for blind
people
seven times the poverty line for person
with
physical disability with high support needs
up to 15 or 16
times the poverty line for deaf people
and person with deafblindness
would need sign language interpreters
and those disability related costs are
not really taken into account
neither in eligibility determination nor
in the design of benefits
so what do we expect from disability
inclusive social protection
providing basic income security
covering the costs of accessing health
care including rehabilitation and
assistive device
coverage of other disability related
costs including support services such as
personal assistance or sign language
interpretation
but also facilitate access to early
childhood development
education and economic empowerment
programs
one of the big issues we face is that
in low and middle-income countries the
coverage
is basically very low we have less than
one in five percent with significant
disabilities in LMICs
that have access to disability benefits
in Sub-Saharan Africa
and Southern Asia the coverage is below
seven percent
and it's of course reflected in the
level of spending
OECD countries in average spend
around 1.4% of GDP on disability related
benefits
while there are only six low and
middle-income countries that spend above
0.4% of the GDP
so what have we learned from the COVID
response
so far and the crisis obviously
there is a significant gap in support
and capacity to respond
as most social protection systems in low
and middle income countries
are not designed to support persons with
disabilities
they are major challenges for countries
without up-to-date national disability
registry
and or disability equal opportunity
card
and we will come back to this point
a bit later and also
in the different examples from my
colleagues
but we saw also that countries who have
a universal or
quasi universal disability allowance
basically they have an effective tool
for shock responsive social protection
they can quickly
provide top up which will support person
with disability
as well as their household which in most
of cases
are very vulnerable
so if we look at the overview of social
protection measures and we did the first
overview in may and we are about to
publish another one
based on the different trackers that
exist internationally and the feedback
we got from the field
over 195 countries that have announced
social protection measures
75 had a specific focus on persons with
disabilities unsurprisingly the most
frequent
intervention was basically a one-off
cash transfer intervention
which may have been advancing payment
or a top-up few countries
have expanded the number of
disability allowance beneficiaries for
instance
Rwanda Lesotho Sri Lanka Kenya Bolivia
or more recently Tamil Nadu in India
not all those cash transfers are
individual cash transfers some of them
are
household cash transfer for vulnerable
household which
may include a person with disabilities
or others
like older person there have been also
administrative measures of interest
for instance in Brazil there has been an
agreement to pay in advance
the disability allowance
while people wait to be able to have
their disability assessments as we know
that in most countries
disability assessment determination is a
key issue
fairly complex often that takes a lot of
time
and so in in Brazil and Russia also
there has been some streamlining or
different measures made to
speed up the access to the benefit while
this process
is ongoing there has been also several
countries where
there was specific in-kind support for
instance in Mauritius
they have announced the fact that they
would distribute
food directly at home for
person with disability that benefit from
the caregiver allowance
with the assumption that they might not
be in position to procure themselves
the food and get to it
in Peru for instance like in some other
countries
there has been put in place a specific
helpline to reach out to person with
disability
and try to connect them with different
support services
however the feedback that we get from
regional consultation we have carried
out with DPOs
organisation of person with disability
in Africa South Asia Southeast Asia
provide a mixed picture of course there
are challenges in getting accessible
information
both with regards to COVID-19 health
response
as well as social protection measures
available but DPOs were saying that some
efforts have been made
for instance in many countries for the
first time there was sign language
interpretation on TV
for the key news but still a lot of work
remained to be done
with regards to access to general
support for instance food distribution
mechanism for the general population
again there are significant challenges
in accessibility
but effort have been made for instance
some form of priority may have been
given to
older people of the disability card in some
countries
trying to have specific spot for
distribution in some others
but overall as I said we have a very
mixed picture
one of the key challenges we highlighted
already is the fact that most low and
middle income countries
do not have a specific cash transfer for
a person with disabilities
and if they do have one
it's often with very limited
coverage
with schemes that are for first poor
person
with severe disability who cannot work
and can't take care of themselves
which is really a paradigm of based on
incapacity to work rather than the
paradigm based on support to
participation and inclusion
so we have a very narrow focus
which basically limits the
responsiveness in the crisis
and will have limited impact with
regards to the recovery
one of the issue we mentioned is the
lack of outreach in countries who do not
have
a national disability registry or a very
limited one
but we have seen in different countries
governments
reaching out to organisation of persons
with disabilities
to get their list of members and try to
work together for instance
with local authorities to identify more
persons with disabilities
in the community and it was already the
case before COVID-19
but in most low and middle-income
countries there is no publicly funded
support services
such as personal assistance or sign
language interpreters
which was already difficult before but
has been particularly painful
during COVID-19 due to the disruption of
informal support during lockdown
so what are we looking forward and what
are some of the conversations we see
happening
so ensuring that economic recovery
programs are inclusive of persons with
disabilities and their families
this is a very important element
in some countries as I mentioned the
paradigm of incapacity to work is
dominant
and for instance there is not much
effort made
in cash for work programs or other type
of
of program to ensure that person with
disabilities can access
those economic empowerment programs
which are really critical in the
recovery
there is an urgency to to develop
broader
and universal national disability
registry
which would assess support requirement
and help government
tailor response and design better social
protection systems that are
truly supporting inclusion one of the
key issues we see and we will hear about
it more
is the fact that those disability
assessment procedures
are often complex and not carried out at
local level
which means that many persons with
disabilities especially in rural area
or remote areas or person with complex
impairment usually miss out and they are
probably among those we need the most
support
so this is really something to
rethink and we are
trying to develop automatic guidance on
this
most importantly there is a need to
combine mainstream and disability skills
specific schemes to ensure basic income
security access to health care and
coverage of disability related costs
across the life cycle with schemes that
are compatible with work so that people
with disability will face this
disability cost trying to find work will
be able
to get the support they need to be economically
included we need a greater accessibility
across social protection delivery
mechanism
and invest in the development of
community support services
one element that we've seen in europe
and over OECD countries after the last
crisis is austerity measures that have
hurt
persons with disabilities which need to
be avoided in the
recovery fiscal consolidation
we will we have developed already some
key documents
around disability inclusive social
protection and in the coming months we
will issue more thematic papers which we
will share with you
on socialprotection.org and other
media and we are looking forward to
continuing this conversation
thank you very much
we're just going to pause for a second
before we hear from Meenakshi
the sign language interpreters are just
catching up
this is an initial analysis
of Indian response to COVID-19 and
persons with disabilities
this report has been acknowledged
by many DPOs in the country so most of
it will be repetition of what
Alex said but this is a good case study
to see
one of the report done by one
organisation in
India logged down and left behind has
found that
nearly 57% of the respondents expressed
financial challenges
because of lockdown and laws of work
78.9% said that
they have no accessibility to COVID
related information and communication for 42.1% of the respondents
said that they did not have access to
support services
all this has led to high risk of
isolation and starvation and death has
been reported
in media
so what is the response of the
government to the situation
overall the social protection measures
at the union and at the provincial level
includes cash transfer supply of
food and provisions moratoriums on loans
particularly
micro small and medium enterprises
waiver from duty for certain
population and helplines related to
COVID-19 and health related services specific
response to persons with disabilities
include at the union level one of
pension through the national social
assistance program which is a top-up to
this program which is paid
in two installments in three months
apart from this union has come up with a
guideline to ensure
accessibility of services for persons
with disabilities
at the provincial level the state
governments have advanced the
state-specific cash transfers
in some states not in all states they've
also come up with specific helplines
um apart from the general food supplies
and
uh russians an exemption from frontline
services
in tamil nadu one of the state in india
there is they have announced a one-off
cash transfer for
all persons with disabilities in the
state with disability id cards
but what we found through our report is
that the efforts have been too little
and
too few because children with
disabilities
are not covered and only 7.6
of working age population of persons
with disabilities
are covered by the indira gandhi
disability pension
or the national social assistance
program which is used to provide
covet relief and the survey conducted by
that
organization revealed 63 percent of
those surveyed did not receive uh this
pension
why do we say that the support is
inefficient because
there was very little effort or no
effort on the part of the government
to address the pre-existing barriers in
the design
of the program which mandates access
only to those with over 80 percent
impairment
and those who belong to families below
poverty line
and prove in capacity to work and also
there are barriers in accessing the
disability id cards
all this has led to low coverage and we
found that nearly
in as many as 34 states less than 10
percent of the working age population of
persons with disabilities are covered
and i presented by way of india map with
state boundaries
in different shades ranging from less
than 1.39 percent
to greater than 11.2 percent in five
segments
similarly we found inadequacy of benefit
in comparison to 1.90 per day
uh poverty line per person
we found that in as many as 22 states
put together the nsap
and the state specific cash transfer
amounts to only 20 percent of the
poverty line
again i'm presenting it by way of india
map with state divisions
uh ranging from less than 14.04
to greater than 46.37
uh in different shapes
in tamil nadu we did a rapid survey and
we found that
at least 60 percent of the respondents
do not have access to the benefit so
it's announced for all persons with
disabilities
and among the respondents who received
the benefit 56 percent
experienced challenges in accessing the
benefit
and 67 percent of those who
did not receive the benefit expressed
that they
failed accessing because of lack of
implementation
process further
we found that the public expenditures to
support persons with disabilities
on social protection amounts to only
0.03 percent of gdp
or 1 0.18 percent of public
uh spending and public expenditures on
social protection
employment and education put together
amounted to only 0.04 percent of gdp
and 0.22 percent of public spending
which is inadequate to address the
pre-existing
inequalities and marginalization due to
gender ethnicity and place of
living so we propose expansion of
pension both in terms of
value and coverage to all persons with
disabilities
streamline and ease the access of
disability id cards compensate
disability additional costs for children
and for persons are experiencing
high restriction and participation
ensure accessible
information and communication other
forms of services
take steps to collect data on persons
with disabilities
at all levels ensure community-based
rehabilitation services
thank you
nice
hi everyone we'll just pause again so
that the sign language interpreters can
catch up
and next we're going to hear from fatima
from
inclusion africa
can i start
yes you can start padma
uh it says i cannot share my screen so i
will need help with somebody
helping me to share the screen
good good morning good afternoon good
evening thank you febicity and thank you
all
for joining us today
i am humbled to share my experiences
right from the african context to
the kenyan context
so going straight into the presentation
is that you know
with less than seven percent of persons
with significant disabilities accessing
disability related social protection
benefits sub-saharan africa is among the
regions with
the very lowest coverage um
we have two few countries which have
specific social protection benefit for
persons with disabilities
but most of them are you know poverty
targeted
their household targeted they have less
coverage
and you know don't look at disability
related costs
but we have a few exceptions in
countries like namibia
south africa and mauritius which
gradually are moving towards even
looking more at disability related
costs when looking at social protection
so again
very few countries in africa have
national disability registry
making it extremely very difficult for
persons with disabilities to access
social protection
schemes so during this pandemic we've
seen a bit
of you know bits and pieces of good
practices across the region
which is quite promising so for example
in mauritius we
have home delivery of food to households
of persons with disabilities
in south africa there's an increase of
disability allowance
in kenya we have additional temporary
disability scheme
for three months in sierra leone they
have a very nice initiative known as the
veronica buckets
which distributes rice other items and
one-off cash payment
among other countries so very promising
uh moving forward if we look at the
kenyan context can we change the slide
please
so looking at the kenyan context in
kenya looking at
pre-covered 19 we have
a social protection program known as
inua jami
inua jami can loosely be translated to
mean
lift the community or strengthen the
community
and the objective of the inua jami
program is to provide a social
protection system through regular and
predictable cash transfers
to poor and vulnerable households at the
same time to build that has
capacity to live together so the program
has three
cash transfers one is for older persons
the other one is for orphans and
vulnerable children
and then we have a catch transfer for
the households of persons with severe
disabilities
so all of the three cash transfers their
poverty targeted but when we got to you
know persons with severe disabilities
there is more eligibility criteria
when one has to benefit from the social
protection program
so number one the recipient must not
be you know a recipient of a pension or
reasonable income
not recipient of any other cash transfer
must be a person who requires 24-hour
care
and a very very important component
under the eligibility criteria for
persons with disabilities is that one
must be registered
with the national council for persons
with disabilities so the national
council for persons with disabilities
is a state corporation which one of the
mandate is to register persons with
disabilities
so the registration process is quite
quite tedious for many persons with
disabilities
and their families so number one
one has to fill in registration form
you have to book an appointment for the
assessment
the assessment is done under medical
team and then this medical assessment is
done from level 3 hospital to level 5
hospital
so level 3 is at the district hospital
and level 5
is at the national level like in the
cities
and then there's a payment which differs
from
one hospital to another so there are
some hospitals which charge
like around three dollars some hospitals
charge as high as ten dollars
the medical team doesn't sit every day
so in some hospitals it sits
once a month in some hospitals it feels
like
twice a month so you can imagine the
number of people
with disabilities who wait to be
assessed with the medical teams
then once a person has been assessed
with the medical
team the medical team prepares a medical
assessment report
and this medical report is shared to the
director of medical services within
three months
of the assessment and then the medical
i mean the director of medical services
will then issue a recommendation whether
a person should be registered or not
so in this process we've seen a lot of
barriers faced by
specific persons with disabilities
especially persons with intellectual
disabilities and psychosocial
disabilities
due to their natural disability which is
an invisible disability
so if a person is coming from a
background where you know a disability
has to be seen for one to be considered
as a person with disabilities then it
puts so many persons with intellectual
and social disabilities at a very tricky
angle
that you know they have to justify more
why they have to be registered
as people with disabilities then once
the recommendation is approved then
the applicant or the ministry of health
will then submit
the medical report to the national
council for personal
disabilities then a person will be
issued with a disability
card so again because the
issuance of the disability card is not
it's not central i mean is not devolved
it is
only done here in nairobi that means
that you know people have to wait for
between three some people have said
they've waited for 18 to 24 months
to get a disability card so quite a
number of barriers when we look at you
know the eligibility
criteria for one to get or to access
social protection uh benefits
so the disbursements of cash transfers
are done every other month
using mobile money
and when we we look at every other month
then it seems that you know a person has
to wait for almost 60 days or a
household where they have personal
severe disability has to wait for almost
60 days
for one to you know to to access the
next you know cash disbursement which
again
if we look at disability related costs
and all that
it puts more and more persons with
disabilities and their household that
are very
very tricky situation again
so to date 52 000 persons with severe
disabilities have been reached with the
cash transfer program
this is five percent of persons with
significant disabilities so
in 2019 kenya did a census and in the
census the disability data was collected
using washington short set of questions
and the total population is about 900
000. so again looking at five percent
of persons with significant disabilities
accessing the social protection
program and we are seeing that the
coverage
is very very little and then the amount
is 20 dollars per month
next slide
so looking at covet 19 response to
persons with disabilities
and their families in kenya the national
council for persons with disabilities
set aside
around 200 million kenya shillings to
push on for
3 23 persons with disabilities against
the effect of the pandemic
this is a short cash transfer for three
months between june to
august 2022 again the amounts are the
same 20 dollars per month so
by the end of three months households of
persons with disabilities will receive
60 dollars
the criteria for this again must be poor
not benefiting from any other government
cash transfer
they must have a valid identity card and
this is for people who are
18 years and above for children with
disabilities
and also adults with disabilities they
must have in addition a disability card
active telephone number and then
priority was given to households with
multiple vulnerabilities so
persons with severe disabilities who
also have other you know
vulnerabilities including diseases
or old age issues of gender dimension
also came into play and all that
so the targeting was done at the
community level and it involved
a multi-agency approach and
this is one thing that was really
striking is that
is that this approach then meant that
you know the local administrators
had to get hold of you know like local
dpos
start having conversations with them
like how do you
support us in identifying persons with
disabilities in your localities and i
think this is something moving forward
this
this is you know this is an example that
it would be very good to pick up even
looking at you know post covered 19 like
how
how are dpos engaged in the
identification process
like even amongst themselves at the
community level like who's deserving of
you know the cash transfer
then data validation for this was used
using
national safety net program and
integrated population registration
services
for authentic authentication and
checking on duplicates so
again this was like really insisted by
the government that they really have to
validate
whether a person is
already receiving another cash transfer
or not
for them to be recommended for the
coveted 19 cash transfer response
so my last slide i'll be looking at some
of
the key messages that i would want to
leave you with
this afternoon or this evening so number
one looking at even the kenyan context
and the registration process of
you know persons with disabilities and
the disability assessment itself
and getting of the disability card
there's
need to localize the whole process make
it more
accessible to many persons with
disabilities
so like like in canada we've seen people
even moving from one district to another
just
you know chasing like which medical
board is sitting on a certain day
because i know like if
mine passed then i really have to
identify which other districts near me
is sitting next so that i can go there
and in the process people are using a
lot of money on transport accommodation
and the whole process of acquiring the
disability card
then there is need to invest and develop
community support services
so just looking beyond like
participation
and meaningful inclusion of persons with
disabilities in the communities
the number three again very important
the involvement of persons with
disabilities
their families and respective
organizations
right from the design of social
protection programs
to monitoring of it and then disability
social protection
schemes need to be compatible to the
right to work and you know economic
social economic inclusion and social
inclusion
and looking at you know a person with
disabilities comprehensively
then the last one is you know the
targeting and criteria
to focus on disability support and
participation
so like if you look at the kenyan
context again
the disability assessment is more on
looking at the impairment
and not looking at you know like the
supports
that are required for a person to live
and be included in the community
and then most importantly this should
also foster personal autonomy
independence and choice of persons with
disabilities so
thank you very much back to you felicity
thank you father we'll have another
little pause while the
interpreters in the caption is catch up
and
next we have josito from timor-leste
oh also um we've had a few questions
about
um the gallery mode um so if you do need
to see the
um sign language interpreter you can
swatch from
swap from gallery mode to um
single view mode um you need to scroll
along
the gallery mode and find the sign
language interpreter
to focus on on that screen please and
send in some more questions if you're
still having troubles
okay um
thank you uh uh felicity
uh good evening from uh
timor-leste and
good morning good afternoon
maybe there um
yes um as we know that
uh timor-leste is um
is a a small country and is a just um
around
20 years old independence
so people with disabilities in
timor-lesses
about based on the census 2015
is um uh
30 118 uh
people living with disability
from one million more than one million
population here in timor west
next slide please
yeah and
stimulus is the one of the uh
poorest country in the south is asia
regime
with a third of the population living on
less than
two dollars per day
so party line intimately
uh that people with disability and their
families
still more likely to be poor due to
the additional cost transport option and
opportunity of uh employment
so many of people with disabilities are
uh choose to be
uh uh establish the
uh the the cell cell group or
uh uh involving the uh
uh pricing uh
activity or program so some of them are
working in a
disabled people uh organization
very less of them are working in the
government sector even though there's
that number is
uh so that about
um 4 000 people
with disabilities working in the
government sector
but in team obvious there are there are
accessibility still
very poor in the government
institution so access to health
facility that's still the
uh considered to be inaccessible
people with disabilities live in rural
area face
extra uh challenges
uh because the distance of
helpless and lack of access
to the transport
um people with disability in a rural
area they are
very difficult to to to
to access for the employment and also
work
they more likely to be depending on
their family
support even also uh
clean water and other things was very
difficult for them to
to be accessible
um minimize
so the uh sorry can it be back to the
okay so the based on the
economic activity that's i just
mentioned that
you know sorry i i have to say that it's
about employing
an employee of the employee of personal
disability in the government
sector is is 1416.
and private employees about
3 000 and you know that that
the other employers are about
65 50 56
so those are based on the census 2015
but you know that many of them are still
uh the data is not
reflected to the washington group
version
so it's not really clear that
and not really clear and not really
uh uh uh
uh data to be used
so
yeah next next next
slide please
yeah uh social protection uh
during the coveted 19 or preg called the
19
there are intimates that are also um
what's under mine we call is
uh um the
mother of uh the pocket of the mother
that's the conditional that's
the case transfer program is for
children from age six to
15 years of living in poor and
vulnerable household so there are about
five five dollars per month for up to
the
children family included person with
disability about
10 percent of children with disability
access for the
this subsidy
and support of the elderly and
uh disability um
pension uh there are about
the uh program is about for elderlies
about
age 60 years old
and also personal disability should be
age
18 to 50 50
sorry 59 years old
so every month the
the guest transfer is about 30
dollar per month so but
that they have to be collect every six
months
so it's about uh
180 dollars
uh per six months so it's about
it's covered for 20 percent of persons
with
severe disability in timor-leste they
are
using international classification of
functioning icf
to to to classify personal disability
so only the person with grade 3 and 4
are access for this pension so grade 1
and 2
they will not access for this pension
this also have a veterans pension is
considerably that higher than the person
with disability subsidy and
also elderly is start from 200
more than 200 dollars per month per
month per month
so it's a no disaggregate data
play uh next next please
uh the impact of the covet 19
uh for people with disability are
most vulnerable group and
and there is towards their corona virus
for example we know that in timor-leste
the hand-washing facility in public
are not accessible whether in urban or
rural
area or settings during the lockdown
person with disabilities had difficulty
accessing medical treatment and even the
medical store
uh magnify of personal disability that
also have uh
hiv hepatitis b or leprosy and others
uh disease so they are very difficult
when they are living in rural area to
access for the medical
assessment so
there also is a very difficult for the
transportation
that people with disabilities or those
are with hiv
or hepatitis direct from rural area to
to to the city to the daily to access
for the
medical treatment and also get the
medicine
there's a significant significant loss
of income
individually at household level that
people with disabilities in rural area
are facing significant issues during
lockdown their absence of transfer means
lost their income generation activity
because of
they did not access to the market
so when i asked
one of the uh
aristo client living in the very rural
area that
he is complaining about
that he with his uh three cycle
that getting broken and it's very
difficult
for his uh because he's very independent
to the his
three cycle to movement and also to do
the mobility and also to
to do the uh
negotiation and awesome market
during that covet 19 uh funding
the status he is facing that
he cannot do doing any movement because
of his
three cycle is getting broken and and
when we are called to him and it's very
difficult for us to
to to visit him so
and he is very facing very difficult to
get in
uh money to to get some to to buy some
food
it's about just in a case study that
we during the we face in the kobe 19
pandemic
next next please
so the government support is very low
for personal disability
even the government are not considering
to the inclusion needs for
personal disability in the asm
marginalized group
you know that uh the covet 19
uh subsidy that was
received doing a small uh
observation and also uh to collect some
data that
many of people with disabilities are not
really considering to be get a
uh uh covet 19 subsidy
so no increased value of coverage of the
disability pension and elderly
inaccessible information
inaccessible hand washing facilities
people with disabilities still facing
leave behind
so uh many of the him was in facilities
in the
in the in around the the place but no
one is
accessible for people with disabilities
and even those with blind are very
difficult
people with blind are very difficult to
access for the uh
in uh hosting facilities and also
lack of information for person with um
with uh blind and also deaf
only some intervention from the uh
international
uh a non-governmental
organization and also a disabled people
organization to provide humanitarian
support during the covet 19 pandemic
such as delivering food and um
and also hence uh uh
washington facilities uh face masks and
other base
uh basically needs aristo has
distributed material for covet 19
in the sum of the municipalities that uh
that's to be prevented to to do in the
prevention and mitigation such as
uh face mass soap
for copied 19 information and food
intervention of
distribution of food is in the seven
municipalities
and also 80
uh 40 sorry 40 40 delays
so yeah
next please
as i mentioned that the subsidy for
families and how
household there is uh this subsidy is
under by minister of social solidarity
and inclusion
uh there are some of the barriers that
people disability face
there a lack of required requirement of
the documents people with disability are
not those are not married but
and they do not live in uh established
house
household some people will disagree they
have established family but
they don't have household familia and
family car so
people with people of women be uh
sorry excuse me many of women with
disabilities have children
due of their violence sexual violence
and
but they don't have access to the this
subsidy
there is also a long uh
bureaucratic process lack of
accessible information from community
leader family don't support assist them
to
process their document some person with
disabilities live with extended
families but they
registered uh them to get higher benefit
but
they don't sell the family members don't
share the benefit
with them so
some some people with disability asking
to receive how
people with disabilities also benefit
from this uh
copied 19 subsidy but this subsidy is
only
for those are established family
and they have a family car
so this is what the situation happened
in timor-leste
next please
so the recommendation and or demands
we would like to recommend that advanced
or extra payment of benefit gear in the
comment 19
need to be considered as part of the
humanitarian support
not only for household support for
income
under 500 per month so this is only for
those who
can be benefit from the covet 19
subsidy if the salary are
minimum or less from the 500
uh need to be download develop and
improve
payment system and also update data for
humanitarian support in the future
need to extend eligibility to the
disability support
allowance to those who are assessed with
disability in grade one and grade two
be if if they are great one and greater
but if the familiar poor
they might be also have to be uh
to have the right to to cover from the
from the subsidy or from the social
protection
need to be improved access to health
systems and facilities
have to be adequate medicine for those
who
people of course people with
disabilities living in rural areas
access accessibility enhancements in
facility
and information system are very
important to be considered
and need to be
reducing in the bureaucracy system of
the responding of the humanitarian
system
to be considered that's to be accessible
and
inclusive for all thank you
thanks jazzy too that was great um it
sounds like some
um users are still having trouble with
um seeing
the sign language interpreter um if you
don't
have the gallery mode um there is
another option to
click on side by side mode in the view
options menu
so give that a try and hopefully that
will um
remedy the situation so we're on to our
last speaking now
and we have ankurisma from indonesia
over to krishna
um thank you to to everyone
um as felicity mentioned um i work for
makota makota is an australian
government-funded program
supporting the government of indonesia
to strengthen its national
social protection policies and programs
um i'm just trying to
change the slide
there we go um and
uh my team in collaboration with the dpo
network
and another um australian supported
program
compaq has been undertaking a very
interesting research agenda to
understand how covid19
has been economically impacting people
with disabilities in indonesia
and the extent to which they are
benefiting from
the various social protection responses
and what we are seeing from from the
research
is that around 60 of people with
disabilities
that the research covered are engaged in
in
informal work they have unpredictable
income sources
and earn less than around 100 australian
dollars a month
um given the situation they're highly
susceptible to
an income shock in the face of any
crisis
now given the precariousness of informal
work
unsurprisingly 97 of informal workers
with a disability
are experiencing a decline in income as
compared to 67 percent
of formal employees
now um well that's to somewhat be
expected i think what's more striking
is the extent to which
people with disability have fallen into
poverty
or become poorer um during covet 19.
so what we're seeing here is um you know
if one has a base
income of around a hundred dollars a
month and they experience a an economic
decline
of around you know between 50 to 80
percent
they're being pushed into into a
situation where they can no longer meet
their basic
daily needs and this is happening to um
you know nearly up to three-fourths of
the respondents um to which
which our research is speaking to
now the good news is that the government
of indonesia and was able to build on
its very strong social protection system
and respond with various
social protection mechanisms now this is
just a quick snapshot of the various
response mechanisms that are
that are in place um and the light
orange boxes
are the various cash transfer schemes
um and for instance simbaco which is the
food assistance program
has increased its benefit level by 33
percent
um and now covers up to 30 of
um of the population so um we see that
the government of indonesia is injecting
a lot of cash
into the economy to help people cope
with this crisis
and as of april 2020 that's when the
quantitative data was collected
for our our survey and at that point we
saw that around 40 percent of
respondents were accessing at least one
of
three schemes at that point there were
only three major schemes on offer
and around 40 percent were accessing at
least one of those three
three schemes um and we saw that the
electricity subsidy
um had the greatest coverage of people
with disabilities
and this is mainly because of itself
registration mechanism
and um by july 2020 and this is when we
started
the the qualitative research we thought
the situation was getting even
even better and this is because of you
know obviously the growing number of
programs the increase
in number of beneficiaries um but more
importantly i think that this layering
of cash transfer programs that the
government had
so there were national level cash
transfer programs but also local level
programs
um at the provincial level district
level and even down at the village level
so for instance um the bel de danadesa
which is the unconditional village cash
transfer fund empowered local
communities to
identify those who've been missing out
on national schemes
and and basically fill these gaps and
many local communities
have been prioritizing people with
disabilities
because they have been falling on
through the through the cracks
and at these at these higher levels
now you can imagine for those who were
earning around 100
a month or less and the fact that they
could now
um you know get around 60
a month from these temporary
unconditional cash
transfers acted as a lifeline for many
many people with disabilities that were
economically
um affected
but this uh was not the case for for
everyone
and we we are seeing that many people
with disabilities have been
slipping through through the cracks like
so just to give you
just a quick snapshot of one one case
study when there's a 65 year old single
mother
supporting a child with multiple
disabilities
she works as a cook in a restaurant and
she was earning about two dollars a day
um pre-pandemic and since the pandemic
her wages were cut by about 50
and meaning that she no longer earned
enough to support her daughter's needs
and her daughter's condition has been
getting worse
unand her daughter have not received any
social assistance
um she's aware of the covet 19 response
schemes and has complained
to village officials but was told that
beneficiaries are determined
at a much higher higher level
so i think on the back of this we really
have
three main recommendations to ensure
that
economic recovery is not just
progressive
but also systematically more inclusive
so the first of those recommendations is
to introduce
a national disability benefit where
people with severe disabilities can
self-register
and then be evaluated to to determine
their eligibility
and this would help ensure that
thousands um don't necessarily slip
through the cracks
and there would be a systematic approach
to providing cash transfers
to to everyone um that's that's entitled
to one
um the second is uh i think moving away
solely from poverty targeted databases
um that mainly target households
um and we know that many of these
databases miss out
on vulnerable individuals like people
with disability
um rather we need to move towards
more disability sensitive data um to
inform
social protection of beneficiary lists
but the good news is that indonesia is
already moving in this direction
and a disability database and the
disability assessment are
already under underway and the last
recommendation is to engage with dpos at
the local level
to inform policy making to disseminating
information
where we see a lot of people with
disabilities the local level might not
know what's on offer
or how how to apply for them um and
really just
to to play that role in ensuring that
the last mile of social protection
um benefits actually reach um people
with with disability
so thank you i'll i'll stop there
great thanks karishma thanks to
um all our wonderful speakers tonight
and we'll move now
into our question and answer session
so we've got a few questions coming in
on the q a
um um chat bar so if you have any
questions send them through now and
we'll see how many we can get through
in the next um 15 minutes before we have
to wind up
and i'm just a reminder that um we will
um
answer all the questions and put um the
answers
up on the website with the recording of
the webinar
so the first question that i'll go to is
from
levgen and it says hello and thank you
for your presentations um
she would like to know um what support
um
is given for people with missing ids or
other documents like internally
displaced people or homeless people
are they left without any government
support and
secondly um and i might directly explain
to you alex um you mentioned community
support um is it better
if it is based on formal or informal
relationships
we have some cases reported where people
spontaneously started helping their
neighbors with disabilities
is it good to try organizing them into a
formal volunteer group
or joining an ngo or better to just
leave it as it is
um i'll hand that one over to you alex
thank you very much felicity so with
regards to the issue of
valid id and official registration
it's indeed a big issue which is not
solely a problem for a person with
disabilities as we know but
many people i would say that
there are things that government can do
i just would like to highlight
the approach that the government of fiji
took in the last two years
when they did they worked with dpos to
to identify people with disability who
would benefit from disability allowance
and they carried out with all visit the
the disability assessment
but in addition to that they got in the
team
people responsible to provide the id
as well as opening bank accounts and
telephone lines
so that the the person doesn't get
bugged
in between different eligibility
criteria and documentation but actually
there is a proactive effort
from the administration to ensure that
this is all done in one go
and this has proven to be extremely
effective as an approach
with regards to the issue of of
community based services
it's very clear that in low and
middle-income countries there is a
significant space for informal support
and community support
but make no mistake more than half of
the support in
high-income countries is provided by
family and friends
so this is something that is true
everywhere but even more so
in low and middle count countries and i
think one of the big challenge we are
facing and which covid
really highlighted what happened when
the family cannot support anymore
and this is the importance of how social
protection systems
can help formalize this community
support this spontaneous support
which may not be always available which
not always
i would say the quality of the support
might not always be there
so it's how social protection system and
social work
can support community to do the right
thing
and and how they can leverage each other
resources
and and they are work for instance
around community-based inclusive
development
community-based rehabilitation which are
doing this kind of work circle of
support for a person with intellectual
disabilities
but there is not enough connection
between those informal or community
initiative
and the formal social protection system
and and
this really weakened first
the the sustainability but also the
coverage of such
approach if you are lucky you are in a
village where it happened and if you are
not lucky you are in a village where it
doesn't happen and
actually you will get nothing so that i
think this how
the formal social protection system can
work more with community-based
organization
to to support the development of support
and services in the community is
extremely important
thank you thank you alex
okay the next question is from hazel and
i'll direct you this
question to karishma please and so
information dissemination is critical in
all
aspects and phases of covert 19 response
can you share some strategies or good
practices by government or
non-government entities
to ensure that information is disability
inclusive
yeah thanks for that that question and
uh there is there is currently
um you know because of the decentralized
nature of social protection
um delivery in indonesia i think there
is a lot of
drawing down um on you know facilitators
but also
working with local organizations um both
at the the district level down to the
village level
to ensure that information um on social
protection mechanisms
gets its um gets communicated
but but i think it still remains a big
gap
um you know indonesia is decentralized
but it's obviously a very vast country
um you know those that aren't living
just directly
perhaps near the district center or
around the periphery
um getting you know the word out um on
social protection mechanisms
is difficult um in the best of
circumstances
reaching out to people with disability
um and other other very vulnerable
groups in a more remote location still
still remains a challenge um i think
hence my
my my recommendation there um to really
use um dpo networks much more i think
you know there is a need to build on um
the actors that are already at the
grassroots level um to ensure that there
is better
examination of of information um
and that that that last mile messaging
so to speak
is is done much more effectively
thanks karishma okay the next question
is from martina
so and this is directed to alex i
wonder about how we can reach those who
most need these schemes
but rigid processes of registration and
confirmed status makes it really
difficult i think this is the same in
all countries not just lower middle
income
countries when we advocate to
governments
or as we in save the children provide
actual
cash assistance ourselves at times how
should we best work to identify persons
or households with disabilities in need
thank you very much this is indeed a
critical element and we got
in the last six three months a lot of
requests with regards to that
i think that there is a key
a key issue with regards to routine
surveys
or assessment that are carried out by
social protection programs not
programmed that are not specifically
targeting persons with disabilities
how best they can make this first level
of identification
um and basically they are for instance
the washington group short set of
questions
which can help identify many
persons with disabilities there are
additional questions
that have been developed that can help
for instance capture more person with
psychosocial disability or intellectual
disabilities which
which can be missed but we believe that
there is a need of a
staged approach is that based on the
the data that you might get from those
first surveys
um you you can already identify many
people
who are likely to have a disability
and then this can be used as a referral
to
community disability assessment
and i think this is one of the biggest
issue that we have seen in india
in kenya in timor-leste
it's the fact that because the social
protection system
is focused on medical assessment and
incapacity to work
they miss a lot of people who do not
have the the resources to go
to the to the system so for instance
india carried
medical assessment camps having those
kind of mobile
but we we see it as it helps but it
doesn't solve the
problem and what we are seeing now with
countries like
fiji vietnam or others is basically the
the idea that
the medical assessment which is already
which is actually a barrier
to accessing the support is not a
prerequisite anymore
that actually community workers with
adequate instruments and tools
can carry out basic disability
assessment and identify
a lot of people so for instance i go
back to fiji because it's the most
recent example we have but in
less than two years they succeeded to
covered one percent
of the working age population which is
pretty significant but one of the reason
so first they adopted a flexible
approach
community level not
medical assessment as a prerequisite but
they also work very closely with
organization of persons with
disabilities
which help also reaching out and i think
that
we had also in the question issues of
person with deafblindness for instance
which are
pretty much invisible because you you
you don't see them in the community
since they have very little support
and if you are not connected with
organization of person with deaf
blindness you are very likely never
to hear about them or to detect them or
to have them in systems
so having this combined outreach is
probably one of the best
the best way of moving forward
great thanks alex we have a question
here from trisha
and i might direct this one to
um meenakshi if that's all right so um
thanks for the great presentations are
any of the speakers
able to tell us more about the gender
dimensions of access to social
protection programs
is disaggregated data being collected
and used
or is this a gap that needs better
addressing
over to you yeah thank you so i can uh
thanks
uh felicity uh so i can
give this from uh the perspect from
india because i have
uh i know uh what's happening uh
as uh gender disaggregated data is not
available
both uh uh for women with disabilities
and girls with disabilities both within
the women
specific program and as well as it's not
available in the person with disability
specific programs
um to um the social protection program
in our analysis what we found was
for women with disabilities specifically
um
what we found was that
it's not it's not responsive to
address the various issues experienced
by women with disabilities
you know due to gender intersectionality
or
disability so and there are no specific
program for women with disabilities so
to give some example
um there is one program which
looks at assistance uh social protection
assistance during uh pregnancy um
in india but if this has not this
includes women with disabilities but it
has not taken into account the specific
support requirements and barriers
experienced by uh women with
disabilities
similarly when it comes to uh violence
and abuse
and uh domestic
violence per se there is a general
procedure
for women with women to access the
community respite centers
but when it comes to women with
psychosocial disabilities these centers
are not
open um so so we find
uh some discrimination even among women
with disabilities uh
uh in this so um so the major issue is
there is no gender
disaggregated data no specific programs
for women with disabilities and the
general programs
both for women as well as for persons
with disabilities are not responsive to
address the barriers
experienced by uh women with
disabilities
this is the situation in india but i
find uh it's true
in many countries because
we couldn't find many resources to
understand
actually the status of access to social
protection
by women with disabilities because most
of the studies are centered around abuse
and violence and
sexual uh sexuality and reproductive
uh health care denial as far as women
with disabilities are concerned
thanks great thanks michael
okay our next question is for fatma
um do you find that social protection
systems have
accessible grievous grievance redress
mechanisms or complaint mechanisms
that persons with disabilities can use
to make their complaints
unfortunately they don't have so like
in just in kenya during this pandemic
and
the cash transfer for questioning
persons with disabilities against the
effects of the pandemic
so many other people were left out and
we've
really been trying to engage with the
local administration just to get to know
like from the recommendation we made
why were other people left out
unfortunately
none of them was able to respond to us
we were referred
back to the ministry and the national
council for persons with disabilities
and even then with both you know the
ministry and the national council for
persons with disabilities we haven't
received
any feedback yet on why some
recommendations
were denied so basically what i can say
that there are no redress mechanisms and
this is
very very dangerous i think moving
forward
social protection systems need to have
you know redress mechanism and also for
people just to
to be given feedback why was there you
know application refused
thank you very much great thanks
um i'll make this the second last
question
i'll address this one to josito and do
persons with disability have a legal
entitlement to social protection in
timor-leste
okay thank you uh
felicity uh yeah uh
in timor-leste day uh
the the government of stimulus they have
a
disability elderly and disabilities uh
pension or subsidy this is under uh
decree loaded been by
minister of social solidarity and
inclusion and also
under uh working with minister of
health um you know that that's
the the process a bit a bit uh
bureaucratic and also a bit uh
complicated
in order that those people with
disabilities are going to be access for
the
or eligible to access for the
disability subsidy they have to be have
um
uh you know they have a uh uh
registered uh in the uh
uh identity card they call a
uh not national identity but they call
using the uh
electoral card it's
under the the ministry of uh
uh
administration so when
you have to get this car but before you
get this car you have to have a
um kind of the uh build car
okay so the vehicles will be processed
you to get the the the
uh electoral card
after that and then it will be have to
go to the minister of health
to test your disability so using
international classification of function
ics
uh to to make sure that people with
disability are in the grade
two or one two or three or
four if those are with grade
two one and two they will be not
eligible to get this
subsidy but only for those are
grade three and four but
not eligible for children so
with age uh seven uh
17 uh years old they will not get
the disability subsidy do
only those are with and and and after
that
if the the the doctor is
the the doctor already identified that
those person with
eligible in the grade three and four
then go to the ministry of social
solidarity and inclusion
they call to be go to register or input
in the
uh in the disability uh
data in the um
in the minister of social uh solidarity
and
inclusion so what happened in during the
covet 19
they don't use this subsidy to respond
for person with disability
they are waiting for another guest
transfer
what they call it covet 19
subsidy is different from disability
subsidy and elderly subsidy
so uh
and people will disagree they have to be
waiting for till
six uh six months
after that they will be getting access
to the
disability pension so uh
it's a bit complicated in timor-leste
many of people with disabilities are
they don't understand about the
information
they even uh they don't access to the
information about uh uh
clear information of the access for the
covet 19 subsidy
and those are living in rural era will
be more
uh poor for the information so
this situation is very very
uh terrible
and coming up also those are you know
that
if you if anyone is getting 500
salary plus one dollar
then will be not access for the uh
covet 19 subsidy so the salaries have to
be
500 less for household
okay so this is the things that happen
in timor leste for
during the uh
two months of the lockdown or
of the state uh emergency for the covet
90.
so it's coming to be
still continue for the lockdown but it's
only for the
uh for the uh
um but only for the
borders so i think it does happen
intimidating thank you
thanks josie tony um it looks like we've
run out of time for
um having some more questions and
answers so we'll make sure that we get
back to you
on any outstanding questions that you
have
um i invite you all to also answer the
post um
webinar survey and the link will appear
in the chat bar shortly
um remember also to join the social
protection and covert
responses um online community so the
link again will be made available
in the chat bar um please join us again
on the 29th of
september for the next webinar in the
disability series of
um inclusion of persons with
disabilities in social protection
for covert 19 recovery and beyond and in
the next webinar we will be diving into
some more technical issues
on disability identification and
assessment as well
as cash and um how community services
can also
be drawn on to provide support to
persons with a disability also keep your
eye out
for some resources and guidance
materials on disability inclusion and
social protection which will be going up
on the sp.org website over the next week
i'd like to thank you all very much for
joining us tonight
and hope we see you on the 29th of um
september
and i'd also um welcome you to give a
round of applause
for our wonderful speakers tonight for
our sign language interpreters
our captioners and our it assistants
thank you all for joining us and hope to
see you again soon
good night
thank you bye
you
