Disability Facts

World wide

• The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that disabled people make up 10% of the population - around 650 million people.
• 80% of persons with disabilities live in developing countries, according to the UN Development Programme (UNDP).
• Disabled people account for 15 – 20% of the world’s poorest (World Bank, Elwan 1999).
• Women with disabilities are recognized to be multiply disadvantaged, experiencing exclusion on account of their gender and their disability.
• According to UNICEF, 30 per cent of street youths are disabled.
• Although disabled people are amongst the poorest they were not included in rural poverty alleviation programmes (ESCAP, 1999).
• There is no country in the world where disabled people’s rights are not violated (Disability Awareness and Action, Hurst 1999).
• Disabled people of working age in developed and developing countries are 3 times more likely to be unemployed and live in real poverty (DPI, Resource Kit 2003). 
• Research indicates that violence against children with disabilities occurs at annual rates at least 1.7 times greater than for their non-disabled peers (UN).
• 98% of children with disabilities in developing countries do not attend school, says UNESCO.
• The global literacy rate for adults with disabilities is as low as 3 %, and 1% for women with disabilities, according to a 1998 UNDP study.
• The International Disability and Development Consortium estimate that 98% of disabled children in developing countries are denied any formal education (IDDC, 1999).

• 7.2 % (2.5 m) of the population have a disability (Uganda National Household Survey 2005/2006).
• More than 40 % of the older persons in Uganda have a disability (Uganda National Household Survey 2005/2006).
• PWDs who are out of school are four times more than those in School (Uganda Population and Housing Census 2002).
• Only 2.2 % of PWDs in Uganda have attained post secondary level education (Uganda Population and Housing Census 2002).
• Approximately, 90 % of PWDs in Uganda do not go beyond primary education (Uganda Population and Housing Census 2002).
• 60 % of PWDs in Uganda do not receive any kind of rehabilitation (Uganda National Household Survey 2005/2006).
• The likelihood that people who stay in a household with a disabled head live in poverty is 38% higher than the likelihood that people who stay in a household with a non disabled head live in poverty (Johannes G. Hoogeveen : Disability and Poverty in Uganda, 2004).