ABSTRACT
The complex links between disability, poverty and development have been increasingly acknowledged within development discourses and research in recent years. Poverty is regarded as both a ‘cause’ and a ‘consequence’ of disability (DFID, 2000). Although reliable statistical data on the incidence of disability/impairment is not widely available and there is no agreed consensus on how disability should be defined, over a billion people worldwide (15% of the global population) live with disability (WHO, 2011). The majority of the global population of disabled people (80%) live in low-and middle-income countries, which often have limited resources available to meet their needs. Furthermore, disabled people are disproportionately represented among the numbers of people living in chronic poverty. The high rates of impairment and preventable illness in the global South are largely caused by malnutrition, poverty, lack of access to sanitation, safe drinking water, health care and other services, hazardous work, landmines and armed conf lict (Yeo and Moore, 2003; McEwan and Butler, 2007).
