Josh is former Vice President, Economic Citizenship &amp; Disability Inclusion. He was part of the team that founded the Center for Financial Inclusion at Accion in 2009. He is the vice president and program manager for the Center&#8217;s Financial Inclusion for <a href="programs-a-projects/pwd">Persons with Disabilities initiative</a>, where he has spearheaded the development of the Framework for Disability Inclusion, which he also helped launch at Fundación Paraguaya.
As the Center’s global advocate for disability inclusion, Josh speaks about disability at conferences around the world, and works closely with the United Nations on disability issues. He also oversees a partnership with five MFIs in India and the Indian disability support organization v-shesh, for which he received a national award from NCPDEP in August 2014.
Josh writes a blog post series for the Center as ‘Mr. Provocative.’ In addition to his work on disability, he is also a professional playwright, having taught playwriting at Boston University for 12 years, and having had a number of his plays produced in London. His activism and passion for social change began in his teenage years, when he took to the streets to protest the American war in Vietnam. He serves on the Board of Fundación Capital.
<a href="mailto:jgoldstein@accion.org">jgoldstein@accion.org</a>
<h4><a title="Leadership &amp; Staff" href="about/leadership-a-staff" target="_parent">&lt;&lt; Back to Leadership &amp; Staff</a></h4>
&nbsp;

Josh Goldstein

Blog Post

&gt; Posted by Joshua Goldstein aka Mr. Provocative

There are no final victories when it comes to providing equal opportunities for groups that have suffered from historic discrimination and exclusion. This is true in the United States. This is true everywhere else in the world.  Attitudinal barriers that belittle and marginalize, originating in class, racial, or religious prejudice, may triumphantly come down in one generation only to be resurrected in the next – or even sooner if some shock to the body politic is great enough.

Thus, watchdog groups like the Center for Financial Inclusion’s Smart Campaign, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and the Anti-Defamation League can never call it quits and declare victory. Backsliding into bigotry is more likely the rule than the exception with our tribal species.

To bolster this glum supposition is this example of the ongoing difficulties facing another beleaguered minority: Twenty-five years after the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), there is new evidence about employment discrimination from researchers at Rutgers and Syracuse University.

<a href="http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/11/02/upshot/fake-cover-letters-expose-discrimination-against-disabled.html?_r=0">According to The New York Times</a>, the researchers applied for thousands of accounting jobs, sending resumes and cover letters on behalf of fictitious candidates, some with disabilities, some without. Employers followed up with candidates via phone or email 26 percent less frequently when those candidates disclosed that they had a disability. The study ensured that disability was the only differentiator among the otherwise identically qualified candidates.

But <a href="http://kesslerfoundation.org/kfsurvey15">another study</a> from the Kessler Foundation shows signs of workplace hope. The foundation’s recent national employment and disability survey shows that once on a job about 16 percent of persons with disabilities (PWD) report negative attitudes related to their disability on the part of their supervisor. However, over 41 percent of these same individuals say that they were able to overcome this barrier. How? I believe it is likely that in many cases the employee with a disability gained acceptance because she demonstrated her pride and personal agency in completing tasks that challenged her boss’ presumptions about her inferiority. Attitudes change because of this assertion of self. Once on the job, daily performance makes the difference.

At the Center for Financial Inclusion, we are running the <a href="http://www.centerforfinancialinclusion.org/programs-a-projects/pwd">Financial inclusion for Persons with Disabilities program</a> to encourage the microfinance industry to become more disability welcoming and friendly. Consonant with the Kessler study, the Center has found that the most effective way to change negative attitudes among the staff members at financial institutions is to have them get to know persons with disabilities. Familiarity in this case does not breed contempt but can open new pathways to acceptance. Our work in India, for example, has included the creation of tools and an operating model for MFIs to incorporate PWD, and disability awareness trainings for institutions across the country. Some of our partners now have more than 15,000 clients with disabilities. When given a chance, persons with disabilities make excellent clients.

While many supervisors’ prejudice can be defeated in the workplace when real, multifaceted people take the place of abstractions, a robust law really matters for the other roughly 60 percent of supervisors in the Rutgers/Syracuse sample whose prejudice appeared unshakeable in spite of contact.

The Rutgers/Syracuse study showed that Fortune 500 companies tended to discriminate significantly less than smaller firms. Demonstrating a lack of interest in candidates with disabilities was most prevalent at firms with fewer than 15 employees. Notably, businesses this small are not mandated to be inclusive under the Americans with Disabilities Act.

So a recipe for the greatest success seems to be a combination of laws with teeth and human connection. Neither alone does the trick. And one reinforces the other.

But while incremental societal change certainly does happen, vigilance without end to protect our vulnerable populations is a necessity. A willingness to play well with others is critical for human survival but in most cases the people played with are from the same tribe. The daughters of today’s supervisors, when they move into leadership positions themselves one day, will have to relearn the lessons of nondiscrimination against people who are different, all over again.

And that is why the Smart Campaign, the ADA, and other human dignity watchdogs, along with enforceable laws, are so central to the human rights enterprise.

Have you read?

<a href="http://cfi-blog.org/2015/03/23/disability-inclusion-in-ecuador-and-around-the-world-an-interview-with-larry-reed/">Disability Inclusion, in Ecuador and Around the World: An Interview with Larry Reed</a>

<a href="http://cfi-blog.org/2015/12/03/happy-international-day-of-persons-with-disabilities/">Happy International Day of Persons with Disabilities</a>

<a href="http://cfi-blog.org/2014/05/28/attitudes-toward-persons-with-disabilities-in-indian-microfinance-institutions/">Attitudes toward Persons with Disabilities in Indian Microfinance Institutions</a>

Vigilance without End

&gt; Posted by Joshua Goldstein aka Mr. Provocative

In the seventh <a href="http://smartcampaign.org/about/smart-microfinance-and-the-client-protection-principles">Client Protection Principle</a>, the Smart Campaign lays out the way that financial services providers should handle complaints: 1) Effective client feedback mechanisms are in place; 2) Clients are aware of how to submit complaints and do so as needed; and, 3) Complaints are handled promptly and adequately.

Seems easy and straightforward enough. But making this process truly client friendly is truly a daunting challenge. On the “demand side,” poor customers may feel ill-equipped to pose questions to company representatives who come from a different class, caste, or ethnicity. The Smart Campaign’s <a href="http://smartcampaign.org/tools-a-resources/1075">Client Voice</a> research found as much in both Asian and African markets. It may be psychologically next to impossible—even in the most client friendly institution.

And if the psychological issue is not an obstacle, the technical and procedural challenges may be opaque enough to lead to failure anyway.

Even educated and savvy consumers can get lost in the complex maze of call center options delivered by that hideously cheerful computer voice - you know the one. “Lower touch” often means “no touch.” And even if a well-meaning customer service representative finally answers the phone and tries to help, he or she may be just a cog in a far flung system – unable to get the needed answers.

I experienced this maddening complexity first hand when I joined a new health plan with a “cost saving” mail order prescription plan. A common medication that cost $75 for a three month supply under my old plan cost $600 under my new plan, or more than seven times as much, according to the health plan website.

“It has to be a mistake, right?”, I said to the call center representative after a long time on hold. When you actually reach a human being, there is almost a kind of species recognition–the excitement of speaking to a fellow human. You want to hug them over the phone.

“Well, no, sir, I looked at your plan again, and that is what it says.”He was truly sorry. I could hear it in his voice. Sympathy among members of the family of the great apes.

Now what? I was not going to take this lying down. Not a master of the universe like me with a litigator’s zeal for combat. I would get the system to see that something had gone out of whack.

The drug plan rep advised me to take up my complaint with the health plan of which the mail order prescription company is a mere subcontractor. The health plan set the rates for the medication, not them. This shuffling between companies also arises in digital financial services, when banks, telcos and third party agents are all involved in a digital transaction and it is hard to determine who is responsible to solve which problem.

When I called the health plan the next day a representative answered within just a few seconds. He was sympathetic, and agreed that this seemed very strange.“I’m gonna put you on hold for a few minutes and get this sorted out,” he assured me. So far, so good.

When he came back on the phone a few minutes later, he said that the price was correct: this was the price the health plan charged for this particular medicine. No mistake. He was sorry but that was the way it was.

At this point, my anxiety was ramping up. Hyperventilation and out of control cortisol levels were surely next. “Oh come on. This is crazy. You can’t do anything? Ok, then who can do something?”

“You can appeal. You need to have your physician send a letter to our review board.”

“And where is that located?”

He wasn’t sure. He thought Salt Lake City. But all the necessary instructions to initiate an appeal could be found on their website.

Don’t panic, I said to myself, panicking. Do I just somehow absorb this extra cost? I had been told by my employer a couple of months before that my new plan’s benefits virtually matched the old benefits with only minor differences. Was this price discrepancy considered a minor difference? Didn’t seem minor to my wallet.

I found information on the website about how to file the appeal. And I contacted my physician’s office and had them “do the paper work.”

Weeks went by and I heard nothing. At this point I reluctantly decided it was time to bother someone from my employer’s human resources department to see if they could expedite things. By this time I was nearly running out of pills. She was great, immediately calling her contact with the health plan. She couldn’t have been more sympathetic or determined to help.

I had a warm feeling inside. Finally, I was on the right track.

Another couple of weeks passed with no response. So she called again and the rep said the appeal was still going on in the Salt Lake City office or wherever it was. Though she didn’t really know, and in any case, there was nothing she could do. It was up to me to get in touch with them directly. “Up to me? Up to me?” I was fuming. What kind of nonsense was this? My HR colleague agreed and promised to put the pressure on. We were not a negligible account and should have some clout.

By then only a couple of pills were left. So should I just pay $600 and get the meds? No. I was going to keep fighting even if my cholesterol (the reason for the pills) was going to spike. This had to have a just resolution. I believed that if I paid I would have no leverage to pursue the fight further. I would have been exhausted into acquiescence. But social justice fighters like me don’t give up on righteous causes easily, especially when it costs us more than $2,000 a year.

In a week my HR friend emailed me sorrowfully to say my appeal in Salt Lake City had been turned down. By now I was in a cardiac red zone, the ticker revving out of control. And I repeated my cri de coeur that by now she had heard ad nauseam about how outrageous this was. But she promised to figure out how to appeal the appeal.

Suddenly, on a day like any other day, the unexpected happened: my HR colleague emailed me that health care account managers urgently needed to speak with me. Something was up. Had the tariff gone even higher because of my complaining?

When I called the health plan not one but two representatives got on the line. People with names, yes names—both first and last. They began by apologizing and continued to apologize throughout the call. It turned out that there was a “coding error,” made no doubt in another far flung office, which had put my common generic drug in the “highest tier.” Clearly, up to this point, no human in the appeals process had ever checked the amount the computer spat out as the price. Not the call representatives, the doctors, the account executives.  Not anyone. Computer says, hominid do.

“What can we do to make this up to you? Our company puts our clients first. We are very embarrassed.” The “touch” that had been almost no touch couldn’t have been higher now.

I said something like make sure that you correct your processes so nothing like this happens to anyone else. That is the way you can thank me.

Even an arrogant, Ivy-educated SOB like me was brought to his sobbing knees by this ordeal. Most people would have in resignation submitted to the system long before I did. They would have assumed they were wrong. They might have seen it through the lens of fatalism.

Low income financial services clients don’t have a chance when a system goes as wrong as it did in my case. So setting up a complaint mechanism, as well intended as it is, may not be nearly enough. Say one of our poor customers overpays a loan due to a “coding error” made by some back office operator hitting the wrong key. What happens if this customer calls the complaint hotline? Will they get anywhere? Imagine encountering such a problem with the first financial institution you’ve ever used, and not having a formal education or an employer with business clout.

Big data, big systems, and poor human oversight make it all but impossible for everyone but the most privileged to have a fighting chance to redress their grievances. It is a terrible problem that is only getting worse.

Postscript:

Following this episode, the beleaguered health plan did a thorough review. It turned out that “coding errors” had infected a number of my claims and indeed the claims of some of my colleagues. I recently got a check in the mail for more than $100 for overpayments I hadn’t even known about, let alone challenged. I will let this speak for itself.

Editor: I think Josh feels that vindication is very sweet.

Have you read?

<a href="http://cfi-blog.org/2015/11/12/why-does-consumer-protection-lag-in-africa/">Why Does Consumer Protection Lag in Africa</a>

<a href="http://cfi-blog.org/2015/10/08/why-we-gave-consumer-protection-a-5/">Why We Gave Consumer Protection a 5</a>

<a href="http://cfi-blog.org/2015/11/09/what-do-clients-care-about-results-from-research-in-pakistan/">What Do Clients Care About? Results from Research in Pakistan</a>

My Weeks in Customer Service Hell

<img class="alignright wp-image-19214" src="https://centerforfinancialinclusionblog.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/mg_4216.jpg" alt="" width="350" height="254" />“Over a sixth of the world’s population has directly experienced armed conflict, torture, terrorism, sexual and gender-based violence, ethnic cleansing or genocide,” states the website of the Peter C. Alderman Foundation (PCAF). I recently attended the <a href="http://www.pcafnairobi2015.or.ke/">8th Annual PCAF Pan-African Psychotrauma Conference</a> in Nairobi, a multidisciplinary event that focuses on psychological trauma in Africa’s war-affected societies. PCAF operates mental health clinics in Cambodia, Kenya, Liberia, and Uganda and conducts trainings for mental health professionals. At the conference, I was surrounded by global leaders from health care, academia, and a litany of organizations working in the mental health space.

At first blush, my participation at such an event might seem odd as my work focuses on disability inclusion for microfinance. But, I’d argue that’s more of a reflection of how society, and our industry, views mental disabilities – with reductive biases – rather than how they fit within microfinance.

I had the privilege of presenting a keynote to the attendees. I discussed whether it’s possible for trauma patients who have gone through a successful course of treatment that includes counseling, medication, and livelihood trainings to become clients of microfinance institutions (MFIs) and build small-sized enterprises. Immediately below is an abridged version of my speech, with the complete text linked at the end.

Can MFIs help victims of trauma find hope and dignity through self-employment?

As a post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) survivor myself from the U.S., who received treatment, I believe with all my heart that in a just society poor people with mental health challenges should get the help they need so they can flourish as human beings. Unfortunately, in the international development world I come from, this great cause is barely on the radar—in spite of the fact that reaching the most destitute is at the urgent core of all international development work. Indeed, I share your outrage at the paucity of funding and support for community mental health from governments and foundations.

But, why self-employment for those with mental health issues like PTSD? Why not go find a job and work for a business that provides a regular paycheck? Isn’t that easier and more secure? Of course it is. Most clients of MFIs are what we call “necessity entrepreneurs” and would rather have such jobs than start their own businesses. But, the sobering reality of limited formal sector employment opportunities across Africa makes finding such jobs for persons with physical disabilities, let alone psychosocial disabilities, even more challenging than it would be otherwise. Even in my country, the United States, unemployment of persons with disabilities in the formal workplace remains unconscionably high.

But are such financial products like credit or savings a good idea for someone with PTSD? For example, would the effort to save or borrow money bring greater stress? There is no easy answer based on my cursory review of the very limited research studies to date – the results are ambiguous and prove nothing conclusive one way or the other. What we do know, thanks to PCAF Uganda Program Director Dorothy Kizza, is that relapsing back into mental illness is often caused by a lack of employment. So, on balance, the stress of not working may be equally or more stressful than paying back a working capital loan which at least holds the promise of a more hopeful future. My own hunch is that the answer will only be decided on a case-by-case basis and so no generalization is really possible.

What seems beyond doubt, as Crick Lund, a professor at the University of South Africa and CEO of PRIME, a consortium of research institutions and ministries of health, has <a href="http://www.healthnettpo.org/files/725/prime-policy-brief-mental-health-and-poverty.pdf">written</a>, “is [the] growing international evidence that mental ill health and poverty interact in a negative cycle. This cycle increases the risk of mental illness among people who live in poverty and increases the likelihood that those living with mental illness will drift into or remain in poverty.” A <a href="http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Harvard_HE_GlobalEconomicBurdenNonCommunicableDiseases_2011.pdf">big picture study</a> from the Harvard School of Public Health and the World Economic Forum estimates that the cumulative global impact of mental disorders in terms of lost economic output will amount to US$16.3 trillion between 2011 and 2030.

I am happy to say that the Center for Financial Inclusion (CFI) and its allied partners working on disability inclusion have begun to demonstrate significant success in including persons with physical disabilities in microfinance in Bangladesh, Ecuador, India, Nigeria, Paraguay, and Uganda, and I hope we can expand this initiative to include persons with mental health issues.

However, achieving the progress needed to financially include people with physical disabilities is not the same as that of including people with mental health issues. Persons with psychosocial disabilities in Africa and in many other places in the world are, in the words of Nigerian healthcare advocate Ifesinanchi Sam-Emurwa, “doubly stigmatized” for having a disability and for that disability being a mental one.

And, to paraphrase remarks by Columbia University psychiatrist Dr. Evaristo Akerele, who spoke this past June at the only mental health session on psychosocial disabilities at the <a href="http://www.un.org/disabilities/default.asp?id=1625">U.N. Conference of State Parties annual disability conference</a>: The person with mental health issues is blamed for bringing what psychiatrists call depression, or anxiety, on themselves. Beliefs such as that God is upset with them, that drug use is to blame, that witchcraft is at work, are all common. In most places, the term “depression” is not culturally acceptable or even understood; there is not an accepted and shared nomenclature for describing mental suffering.

An interesting example of how this “double stigma” plays out also comes from Nigeria, in the financial services arena. The Central Bank of Nigeria recently earmarked US$20 million to financial service providers to make loans to persons with disabilities—a great step forward. But, it explicitly excluded persons with mental health disabilities as recipients of these loans.

So, what can be done to improve the situation? I want to suggest five of the biggest challenges we face and interventions that I believe we can undertake together to answer these challenges and improve the livelihood possibilities of persons with psychosocial disabilities. I hope this will form the beginning of an action plan.

Challenge 1: How can the staff of an MFI with no training in psychology even begin to identify clients with mental health issues if there are no common, agreed on terms of reference for describing distressed states of mind? How do we sensitize staff to work with this client segment?

It is relatively easy to determine a baseline of the numbers of persons with physical disabilities who are clients, by asking medically non-invasive questions (or just through observation) about their state of wellness. Unless a person with mental health issues self-discloses, it is impossible to know if they are suffering from a depressive, anxiety, or other disorder.

Intervention: Volunteers from the mental disability space, like attendees of these annual PCAF Conferences, can help financial service providers design survey questions that allow MFI staff to get a better count of current clients with mental health issues. These volunteers along with PTSD survivors themselves can help sensitize MFI staff on how to best reach out to persons with mental health disabilities. They can connect MFIs with community mental health leaders and, in particular, patient advocates. These learnings can then be incorporated into the <a href="http://www.centerforfinancialinclusion.org/programs-a-projects/pwd/framework-for-persons-with-disabilities">Framework for Disability Inclusion</a> so that a set of best practices can be developed and shared with MFIs from around the world.

Challenge 2: Access and support for basic capital and business training for persons with psychosocial disabilities is largely lacking.

Intervention: Connect PCAF graduates, and those of other mental health clinics that include business training, to microfinance providers, credit unions, self-help savings groups, and other providers offering group-based financial services as well as enterprise-building support to professionalize the business training and operations of the clinic patients. The natural intermediary to make first contact with the MFI or other provider might be the PCAF social worker, during their weekly or monthly follow-up outreach to former PCAF patients in their villages, homes, and workplaces.

Just as CFI identified two or three institutions in India that were eager to do a pilot to include persons with disabilities in their programs, we can work to identify two or three MFIs in the PCAF countries of Cambodia, Kenya, Liberia, and Uganda who want to be leaders in including persons with psychosocial disabilities in credit and/or savings groups. Success is promising here since a portion of PCAF livelihood trainings are done in groups, suggesting that the transition to group lending methodologies could prove to be quite natural and comfortable.

Challenge 3: The United Nations (U.N.) does not do enough to recognize the importance of mental health disabilities -- when it comes to collecting good statistics, when it comes to prioritizing it as a Sustainable Development Goal to reduce extreme poverty, when it comes to seeing therapeutic intervention as a significant part of the Constitution on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities treaty.

Intervention: Those working in this field and other interested parties should lobby the Washington Group on Disability Statistics (the U.N. body charged with disability statistics) to include a specific question on mental health in its so-called “short set” of questions that it provides to governments that do censuses and disability surveys. Similarly, while they’re still being shaped, pressure should be applied to modify the Sustainable Development Goals to include much stronger language on mental health.

Finally, there must be concerted lobbying by PCAF, and others, to ensure that in implementing the articles of the U.N. Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, the right to receive treatment for mental health ills gets equal billing with assuring the right to vote and enjoying equal protection before the law. If this does not happen, it will be much harder for mental health practitioners to obtain funding from governments and foundations to expand their community mental health programs--something critically important in countries like Burundi that have only one psychiatrist in the whole country!

Challenge 4: To create a new set of global standards and indicators for microfinance institutions and other financial service providers to follow that will establish the importance of and offer guidance on serving PTSD survivors and other persons with psychosocial disabilities.

Intervention: The CFI will work collaboratively to push the microfinance industry-wide standard-setters to add mental health indicators. With the help of key industry standard-setting groups, I believe that we can help to break down the attitudinal barriers that keep persons with psychosocial disabilities in extreme poverty unbanked and stigmatized. For example, I am delighted to announce that the <a href="http://www.fundacionparaguaya.org.py/?page_id=490">Poverty Stoplight</a> has offered to take the lead in creating a mental health indicator for its assessment tool. The Poverty Stoplight set of indicators, pioneered by Fundación Paraguaya and now used around the world, sees poverty as multidimensional and have developed a tool that allows the poor to measure their own poverty, broken down into different categories. Adding a mental health indicator could be a source of data that could be used not only by MFIs but by local community mental health leaders and other public health providers.

Freedom from Hunger in conjunction with the Microcredit Summit Campaign has just published a new guide called “Healthy, Wealthy, and Wise: How Microfinance Can Track the Health of Clients,” in which they share experiences in selecting and pilot-testing health indicators among four MFIs. The researchers asked questions around six health indicators: food security and nutrition, preventive health care, poverty, curative health care, sanitation and safe water, and attitudes. The results demonstrated the added value of health indicators when combined with poverty measurement in helping MFIs understand client well-being. Their “theory of change” is that with greater financial resources, the clients will be able to meet their essential needs as outlined above—like having clean water or improved nutrition. I have consulted with the guide’s author, Bobbi Gray, and she is very willing to work with us to see if we can help her develop a seventh indicator around mental health--which is great news.

My conclusion is that self-employment can offer dignity and hope to persons recovering from mental illness. And, that like persons with physical disabilities, many can make excellent clients. I think it is worth exploring how we can do more to connect PTSD survivors with MFIs and other financial service providers to open their doors to PCAF clients and those of other clinics. At the very least, this initiative will help fight stigma and bring down attitudinal barriers. Let us see what works and what sticks. It is certainly worth a try.

The full text version of Joshua's speech can be found, <a href="https://centerforfinancialinclusionblog.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/pcaf-plenary-7-14-2015-by-joshua-goldstein.pdf">here</a>. 

This post was concurrently published on the Microcredit Summit Campaign's <a href="http://100millionideas.org/">100 Million Ideas blog</a>. The CFI has made a <a href="http://www.microcreditsummit.org/featured-commitments.html#CFI2014">Campaign Commitment</a> to bring greater attention to the issue of aging and financial services and further support the inclusion of those with disabilities.

Have you read?

<a href="http://cfi-blog.org/2015/03/23/disability-inclusion-in-ecuador-and-around-the-world-an-interview-with-larry-reed/">Disability Inclusion, in Ecuador and Around the World: An Interview with Larry Reed</a>

<a href="http://cfi-blog.org/2014/09/04/13000-pwd-and-counting-receive-financial-access-in-india/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">13,000 Persons with Disabilities (and Counting) Receive Financial Access in India</a>

<a href="http://cfi-blog.org/2014/01/13/a-how-to-guide-to-realizing-disability-inclusion-at-mfis-is-now-available/">A How-To Guide to Realizing Disability Inclusion at MFIs Is Now Available</a>

Four Interventions to Help Victims of Trauma Find Hope and Dignity

Sergio Guzmán

Brian Clancy

Jimena Vallejos

Implementation Guidelines for Microfinance Institutions Seeking to Close the Financial Inclusion Gap for Persons with Disabilities

Report

While persons with disabilities (PWD) make up 15 percent of the developing world's population it is estimated that they represent only 0.5 percent of current MFI clients. While some PWDs have challenges so severe that economic participation is not feasible and ill advised, the vast majority (80-85 percent) have the capacity to utilize and benefit from financial services. This means that literally hundreds of millions of PWDs who are viable microfinance clients are unserved. Making the impact we all seek at the base of the pyramid is fundamentally impossible unless we get better at reaching and empowering this vital and talented customer segment.

The Smart Campaign has joined forces with the Persons with Disability Program of the Center for Financial Inclusion and Fundación Paraguaya to create a set of how-to trainings and tools that will help MFIs become disability friendly and inclusive. The goal of this work is connected to and aligned with Client Protection Principle #5 -- Fair and Respectful Treatment of Clients -- in particular the section that addresses the critical importance of enshrining non-discriminatory practices.

Below are all the tools and trainings in English with a brief description for each of them and translated versions where available.

A Framework for Microfinance Institutions Seeking to Close the Financial Inclusion Gap for Persons with Disabilities. This Framework was developed with guidance from leaders in both the microfinance and disability inclusion communities and is being refined and tested at Fundación Paraguaya, in conjunction with our strategic partner Handicap International. It identifies seven core areas that MFIs need to address to achieve PWD inclusion:
<ul>
 	<li>Universal Design and Reasonable Accommodation</li>
 	<li>Partnership with Disability Organizations</li>
 	<li>Human Resources Policy, Practices</li>
 	<li>Disability Inclusion Staff Training</li>
 	<li>Legal Framework</li>
 	<li>Technology-Enabled Inclusion</li>
 	<li>Financial Capabilities</li>
</ul>
This Framework integrates all our tools and trainings described in detail below into six pragmatic and actionable implementation steps--- a real "how to" guide. We recommend that it be read first as it gives context to the other documents and provides a cogent overview of the themes explored below.

<a href="https://content.centerforfinancialinclusion.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/09/framework_for_disability_inclusion_fr_usaid.pdf">Download French Report</a>

<a href="https://content.centerforfinancialinclusion.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/09/roadmap_for_disability_inclusion_sp_usaid.pdf">Download Spanish Report</a>

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Framework for Persons With Disabilities

&gt; Posted by Josh Goldstein aka Mr. Provocative

<a href="http://www.victorialabalme.com/communication_and_presentation_skills/?p=436" target="_blank" rel="attachment noopener wp-att-9845"><img class="alignright wp-image-9845" style="border: 0" src="http://centerforfinancialinclusionblog.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/lady-justice-propertymanager-com_.jpg" alt="" width="330" /></a>The painful crawl toward full inclusion of all citizens in all realms of activity is one of the major storylines in American history. It is a key measure of the success of our democratic experiment that we, the people of the 21st century, continue to work with uneven success to perfect our society. How far we have come from the republic of our 18th century founders when only white male property owners enjoyed the privileges of full citizenship! But the advances toward equal rights and opportunities for women, African Americans, gays, persons with disabilities, and other minorities have come through the hard work over many generations of devoted citizen activists fighting for their causes and constituencies.

The point is that rights are not obtained by one Presidential decree, like the Emancipation Proclamation freeing the slaves in Confederate territory, or one legal remedy, like the <a href="http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?doc=63" target="_blank" rel="noopener">19th Amendment</a> to the United States Constitution that enshrined women’s right to vote. These were essential milestones that secured progress, but they were preceded by decades of struggle and would have proven ephemeral if the generations that followed had not persisted in that struggle. There were many setbacks and detours along the way. Nothing was automatic or achieved without extraordinary persistence and sacrifice.

In pursuing financial inclusion, the Center for Financial Inclusion works toward this ideal of non-discrimination, with a special emphasis on economic equality and opportunity for poor people around the world. Nowhere is this more pointed than in the “<a href="http://smartcampaign.org/tools-a-resources/548" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Responsible Treatment of Clients</a>” principle, one of the Smart Campaign’s <a href="http://www.smartcampaign.org/about-the-campaign/smart-microfinance-and-the-client-protection-principles" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Client Protection Principles</a> for customers of financial institutions.

The Responsible Treatment of Clients principle declares that financial institutions will not “discriminate.” And in the accompanying <a href="http://centerforfinancialinclusionblog.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/20120301_sc_responsible-treatment-of-clients-practicing-non-discrimination.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">guidance document</a> it elaborates as follows: “Client selection and treatment should not involve discrimination on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, political affiliation, disability, religion or orientation. Non-discriminatory treatment is important for providing access to financial services to all clients who can use them and builds their confidence in the fairness of the provider.” And the newly promulgated <a href="http://smartcampaign.org/certification/certification-standards" target="_blank" rel="noopener">certification standards</a> will require compliance to this core principle if certification is to be granted.

Here is what worries me: Requiring immediate compliance with this noble non-discrimination principle may be unrealistic. The principle is ahistorical and non-contextual. It implies a global consensus on rights and assumes a universality that does not exist. Tolerance, let alone acceptance of homosexuality, just to name one example, is not a given in most countries. Far from it – as we know perfectly well to this day in the United States.

The principle may be at odds with a particular country’s local history, time-honored mores and folkways. When I look at how long it has taken, and continues to take the United States (more than 200 years) to come into imperfect compliance with the very principles upon which it was founded, I believe we need to be patient and tactful in asking for immediate compliance from financial institutions in other nations that have different founding premises. This is both unrealistic and unfair and could have the unintended consequence of provoking a fierce reaction and setting back the cause of equality.

At the same time, gently pushing institutions towards non-discrimination and equal opportunity should continue. The ideals enshrined in the Client Protection Principles are worth fighting for. But the principles must have enough built-in flexibility to take account of local realities. The certification teams will have to find ways to strike the right balance and should be prepared for the complexity of the task. The crawl towards inclusion is not a straight line.

Great change does not happen overnight.

Image credit: <a href="http://www.victorialabalme.com/communication_and_presentation_skills/?p=436" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Victoria Labalme / Property Manager</a><a href="https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/bitstream/handle/10986/11858/9780821396346.pdf?sequence=5" target="_blank" rel="noopener">
</a>

Have you read?

<a href="http://cfi-blog.org/2013/01/28/microfinance-ceos-smart-campaign-certification-is-a-clear-step-toward-responsible-microfinance/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Microfinance CEOs: Smart Campaign is a "Clear Step" Toward Responsible Microfinance</a>

<a href="http://cfi-blog.org/2013/01/22/vulnerable-minorities-theres-an-elephant-in-this-room/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Vulnerable Minorities: There's an Elephant in This Room</a>

<a href="http://cfi-blog.org/2012/08/30/equal-pay-for-equal-work-are-mfis-paying-women-employees-the-same-as-men/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Equal Pay for Equal Work: Are MFIs Paying Women Employees the Same as Men?</a>

The Difficult Crawl Towards Non-Discrimination - Financial and Otherwise

This note explores how microfinance institutions and disability organizations can best contribute to increasing access to financial services for poor people with disabilities worldwide. After a brief discussion of the challenge and the opportunity, the concept paper advances several working hypotheses about steps the microfinance industry could take. This concept paper was the basis of a roundtable held on June 18, 2010 in Washington D.C. and the ideas presented within were the key areas of discussion.

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Josh Goldstein

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