Introduction

Disability is a complex and evolving concept. Historically, it has been viewed from a medical perspective, whereby it was understood as a deviation from an imagined human norm. According to this medical model, disability was defined exclusively according to a person’s impairments and the focus lay on preventing, treating and managing these impairments. Over recent years, and prompted largely by the self-organization of persons with disabilities, this medical model has gradually given way to new understandings of disability. Today, disability is considered to be part of the human condition rather than a deviation from the norm, and a result of the interaction between persons with particular mental, health or other conditions and their environment, rather than a product of their impairments alone. According to this latter approach, interventions should focus not only on people’s impairments but also on dismantling the attitudinal, environmental and other barriers that hinder persons with disabilities from fully participating in society.

This evolution in the understanding of disability has driven substantial policy change over recent years. At the regional level, Arab countries declared the Arab Decade for Persons with Disabilities (2004-2013) at the 2004 Arab Summit in Tunis. This decade marked a milestone for the Arab world, as it established for the first time a set of regionally agreed principles and objectives to guide national efforts on disability. Two years later, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) formalized the new concept of disability and now provides States Parties with a comprehensive framework for protecting, promoting and advancing the rights of persons with disabilities. As of November 2013, the CRPD had at the global level 158 signatories and 138 ratifications and accessions. 

“[D]isability is an evolving concept and …results from the interaction between persons with impairments and attitudinal and environmental barriers that hinders their full and effective participation in society on an equal basis with others”.

UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (Preamble, paragraph (e))

Together, all of these developments have had significant implications for Arab countries. Governments have devised new laws, strategies and policies in order to reflect changing conceptualizations of disability and to implement the provisions of the CRPD and the Arab Decade for Persons with Disabilities. And while significant progress has been made in this regard, it is clear that governments have also faced a number of implementation challenges. Measures to ensure accessibility of the built environment and equal access to services, for example, can at times require substantial expertise and financial resources, an issue that is made all the more complex in a region where several countries face severe capacity constraints. Defining disability is a particularly challenging task for governments, as it means casting an evolving concept into legal language, which must be both precise and inclusive in order to design appropriate policy approaches and to determine eligibility for disability-related support. Furthermore, reliable and comparable data on disability – a prerequisite for the formulation, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of evidence-based policies – is limited in the Arab region. 

It is in this context that ESCWA and the League of Arab States conducted this baseline study on disability in the Arab region. The study included two parallel data collection processes, which were conducted between May and September 2013. Firstly, quantitative data on persons with disabilities was collected from national census and household survey data for a range of indicators, including disability prevalence, age distribution, marital status, geographical location, educational attainment and economic activity. For comparative purposes, data was also collected wherever possible on the total population for the same indicators and from the same statistical source. This data was then sent to focal points in national statistical offices for verification. Secondly, designated government focal points worked with the team to collect information on the institutional and legal infrastructures on disability in Arab countries. In total, ESCWA and the League of Arab States received responses from 19 out of 22 Arab countries for the data verification process and from 16 countries for the legal and institutional survey. The results of these two data collection processes are presented in a set of country profiles, which form Section III of this report.