Women with disabilities must be involved in planning economic empowerment programmes

Women with disabilities often face layered challenges influenced by different identities, including their gender, disability and poverty levels. These intersecting identities shape their lived experience and significantly impact their economic outcomes.

For those of us working in the development sector, understanding this intersectionality is vital, and we need to proactively consider these layered identities in planning economic empowerment projects. That means involving women with disabilities from the very beginning of the project planning cycle, rather than considering their requirements as an afterthought.

In daily life, the odds are stacked against women with disabilities. Compared to men with disabilities and women without disabilities, they are:

• Three times more likely to face gender-based violence
• Less likely to be employed (and when they are employed, likely to have lower earnings)
• Less likely to have access to education (and, because of this, have lower educational outcomes)

Deep-rooted negative cultural practices and societal stigma are major drivers of the challenges that women with disabilities face. Sightsavers has conducted gender equity and social inclusion analyses with our partner organisations of people with disabilities (OPDs) in several countries to better understand these gender dynamics and inform our gender-sensitive programming.

Here’s what we’ve learned from our consultations with women with disabilities and their representative organisations.

Barriers women with disabilities can face

Family support can be challenging

Young women with disabilities in northern Uganda and western Kenya report that family and community perceptions towards them affect their ability to successfully gain skills, land a job or run a business. Families may perceive that educating a woman is a waste of resources (since the reproductive and caregiving role of women is prioritised). Also, women with disabilities may be considered less capable due to their impairment. This can mean families and communities aren’t inclined to support their efforts to pursue economic opportunities.

Negative perceptions undermine confidence and opportunities

Women with disabilities often internalise societal narratives that undermine their confidence. Children with disabilities grow up in families, communities and institutions where they may be treated differently and have their abilities downplayed. Experiencing these harmful narratives often leads to a distorted sense of self, causing low self-esteem and low confidence.

Navigating waged employment spaces can be incredibly difficult for women with disabilities, regardless of level of skills or education. Employers hold biases that prevent them from hiring qualified candidates with disabilities.

In Pakistan, a woman with a disability living in a major industrial town shared with us that she did not have a job five years after graduation from college: “I have a master’s in philosophy, yet finding a job has been incredibly difficult for me. Whenever I go for interviews, recruiters reject me because of my disability.”

Disability stigma affects business opportunities

Women with disabilities are highly enterprising. Many of the small and microbusinesses supported in Sightsavers’ economic empowerment programmes are owned and run by women with disabilities. There is incredible potential for these businesses to expand and create employment while lifting individuals with disabilities and their families out of poverty.

But the potential of these businesses to grow and scale is often stifled by market forces and stigma in communities and financial institutions. Limited ownership of significant assets, poor business practises and negative perception towards the risk levels of businesswomen with disabilities all limit access to business development support and financial products that are crucial for the growth of their enterprises.

Ownership of assets may be limited

Within their homes, women with disabilities often have limited control over assets that matter to financial institutions such as livestock, land and houses. Women often control household items such as dishes and furniture, which are not considered valuable by financial institutions.

Examples of inclusion in action

Economic empowerment programmes must seek to address deep-seated stigma and negative perceptions towards women, especially women with disabilities. An FCDO-funded project led by Sightsavers and in partnership with Unicef is working with OPDs in Nigeria to do just that: it focuses on supporting women and girls with disabilities, aged 18-24, to grow self-confidence and job readiness by developing life skills and growing small businesses. The programme’s participants have reported improved business skills and increased self-esteem as a result of the training, mentorship and peer-to-peer connections with other women with disabilities.

One participant said: “Sightsavers has a good strategy for encouraging people with disabilities to achieve great things in life. I feel confident that I can do better, and I can see my path more clearly.”

Another programme, Futuremakers by Standard Chartered and led by Sightsavers working with OPD partners, delivers an economic empowerment programme with a twin-track approach of supporting women with disabilities to gain skills and helping employers become more disability confident. This approach is crucial to dismantling biases towards people with disabilities and fostering disability-inclusive workplaces.

Programmes that help women with disabilities build business assets, while at the same time negotiating for the development of products that meet financial needs of small and micro-enterprises led by women with disabilities, are crucial in enhancing business growth. Provision of business development skills training and mentorship has proven to be absolutely necessary for women with disabilities, who often have small social circles and miss out on growth opportunities that are more obvious and accessible for people without disabilities.

Recommendations from women with disabilities

Women with disabilities have expressed a strong desire for economic inclusion through our consultations, and have strong views on what needs to change for this to be realised. Their recommendations are:

• Women with disabilities must have decision-making power in issues and policies that affect their economic outcomes
• Greater investment is needed in accessible education and skills training, tailored to the needs of women with disabilities
• Financial institutions and business development support programmes must offer products that consider the realities of businesses owned by women with disabilities, including challenges on asset ownership, decision-making power and wealth accumulation
• Employers must endeavour to engage directly with women with disabilities, and to address the biases that prevent the building of inclusive workplaces, leading to discriminative hiring practices and workplaces
• Awareness campaigns and policy interventions should be implemented to tackle the deeply ingrained stigma that limits positive economic outcomes for women with disabilities

Governments, employers, development and humanitarian partners in economic empowerment and livelihood spaces must lead with intention to support the inclusion of women with disabilities.

For economic empowerment programmes to be effective, the inclusion of women with disabilities must be built into the fabric of programme designs, and this design must reflect the desires of women with disabilities, captured through informed participation.