Disability Policy Issues in Developing Countries

Few developing countries have articulated disability policies, although disability prevalence in developing countries may be higher than in developed countries. This paper presents a definition of disability policy which includes both manifest and latent aspects of policies in the areas of education, rehabilitation, economics, and civil rights. Educa-tional issues relate to the economics of mainstreaming and whether it is an improvement over no education at all. The rehabilitation issue focuses on whether services can or should be centralized/specialized or decentralized/non-specialized. In economics the issues are sources of money and control over expenditures. Civil rights has not yet received the attention in developing countries that it has begun to receive in developed countries. Disability policy consists of laws, programs, and judicial decisions in at leastl the four areas of education, rehabilitation, economics, and civi