Central Bank of Sri Lanka January - March 2020 olume 40 Number 1 V Effective Inclusion of Differently Abled Economic Agents into National Labour 02 Force: Challenges and Prospects Impact of COVID – 19 on Income News Survey08 Inequality of Sri Lanka Importance of Risk Management for 17 Financial Institutions THIS ISSUE National Financial Inclusion Strategy of IN 21 Nigeria, Lessons for Sri Lanka Developing the Government Securities 29 Market - The German experience ISSN 1391 3589 The views expressed in the articles are those of the writers Price per copy: Rs. 60.00 and are not necessarily those of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka. Annual subscriptionCentral (I nclusiBank ofv Srie of Lanka postage): - Rs. 420.00 News Survey / Jan - Mar 2020 1 Effective Inclusion of Differently Abled Economic Agents into National Labour Force: Challenges and Prospects K A THAMARA NILMINI SENARATHNA,W D U S K Weerasinghe, Senior Assistant Senior Assistant Director, Director, Payments Statistics and DepartmentSettlements Department 1. Background a comprehensive strategy to include disabled persons into mainstream labour force would help not only to Inclusive growth has become a prominent topic in minimize government welfare expenditure but also to emerging global development agenda. It attempts increase labour force participation. to include people who are excluded such as aged population, economically inactive females, differently What is disability? abled persons and so on, into the mainstream labour The term ‘disability’ has been defined in various ways force (Udaya Kantha K. K. S. and Perera K. E. D., 2013). by different organizations. For the World Health According to the Census of Population and Housing of Organization “Disabilities is an umbrella term, Sri Lanka conducted by the Department of Census and which covers impairments, activity limitations, and Statistics in 2012, 8.7 per cent of the total Sri Lankan participation restrictions. An impairment is a problem population (five years and above) are differently abled in body function or structure; an activity limitation is persons (Approximately 1.6 Mn persons). Sri Lanka a difficulty encountered by an individual in executing labour force has lost its full capacity due to two youth a task or action; while a participation restriction is a insurrections, 2004 Tsunami situation and thirty years problem experienced by an individual in involvement in long civil war in addition to born with, disabilities life situations” ( http://www.who.int/topics/disabilities/ population (Coomaraswamy I, 2017 and Department en/). This definition is based on health perspective and of Census and Statistics, 2012). Further, the ageing disabilities and impairment are identified as too close population phenomenon and increasing accidents conditions. have also led to an increase in the number of disabled persons in the country. In line with these developments In Sri Lanka, Protection of The Rights of Persons with government health and welfare expenditure increased Disabilities Act (No. 28 of 1996) as amended by Act and labour force started to shrink. Hence, developing No. 33 of 2003 has defined disability as “a person who, 2 Central Bank of Sri Lanka - News Survey /Jan - Mar 2020 as a result of any deficiency in his physical or mental impaired people, have to face a lot of information and capabilities, whether congenital or not, is unable by communication barriers within workplaces. Moreover, himself to ensure for himself, wholly or partly, the it is difficult to address this issue due to lack of necessities of life”. Although there are some deficiencies affordable assistive devices in the local market. with disabled persons, they also have some capabilities Furthermore, over or lower protection within families for which can be used to include them into labour force. disabled children prevent socialization of such children. However, today many disabled persons fall in to the Negative attitudes and stigmatization towards differently economically inactive category which amounts to1.1Mn abled persons within work places also discourage their out of around1.6 Mn total disabled population (Source: labour force participation. From employers’ perspective, Census of Population and Housing of Sri Lanka, 2012, they assume that additional costs have to be incurred to Department of Census and statistics). employ disabled persons into their firms. For example, K A THAMARA NILMINI SENARATHNA, Senior Assistant Director, Payments and Settlements Department 2. Barriers to Enter the Labour Force necessary workplace arrangements have to be made before enrolling wheelchair users. On the other hand, There are a number of barriers that prevent differently prejudices on efficiency could also result in excluding abled persons from entering the labour force. Some disabled persons from the labour market. barriers depend on their disability, and some are common for all differently abled persons. Transforming Persons from Disability to Ability: International Experiences to National Lack of proper education is the main reason for Development unemployment among differently abled persons. With a view to addressing the challenges faced by This has been caused by barriers faced by disabled differently abled persons, various countries have persons within existing socio-economic context. introduced various policies. These policies can be divided Further, as is identified in national policy on disability into two major categories such as passive measures 2003, environmental and transport accessibility, and active measures (Shima. I et al, 2008). Passive communication, cultural, lack of assistive devices and measures include welfare schemes and other charitable societal and family expectations are the other barriers activities. These kinds of policies lead to increase faced by disabled persons in engaging with mainstream dependency of disabled persons than independency. society. Hence, many countries have taken actions to transform their policies from passive to active. The key objective From the labour market perspective, access to workplace of active policies is to empower disabled persons to and access to public transport are the major barriers be independent persons. In other words, these kinds faced by disabled persons. For instance, it is hard to of policies attempt to convert disabled persons from provide wheelchair access to workplaces due to steps welfare recipients to tax payers. and other physical barriers. At the same time, differently abled people are unable to use public transport services Disability is caused by one or more impairments. Today (eg: Buses, Trains) because of limited alternative assistive technology plays a pivotal role in replacing boarding facilities. Further, documents in many work functions of impaired body parts. Following table places are not accessible for visually impaired people. provides a detailed description of the developments Therefore, the differently abled, especially the visually occurred in this field. Central Bank of Sri Lanka - News Survey / Jan - Mar 2020 3 Table 01 Disability Category, Barriers and Assistive Technology Based Solutions Disability Category Examples of barriers in social, Examples of accessible technology economic, and community solutions participating Visual disability includes total Reading print (e.g., textbooks, Text to speech rendition and blindness or low vision instructions, documents) and speech/voice and output. writing (e.g., signing checks legal Braille displays documents). Screen and text magnification Accessing visual information in print or audiovisual media (for Voice recognition example, warning and information Audio description of graphic and in text scrolls on television). visual media Navigating new surrounding when Electronic audio signage all signage is in text. GPS-facilitated navigation Optical character or image recognition Changing screen brightness, color contrast. Hearing disability total or partial Hearing lessons, warnings, and Closed and open captioning, hearing loss other auditory information in subtitles for videos, TV person or over audio media such as programming. the radio or television. Text Telephone or Tele Communicating with others communicating Device for the including educators, peers and Deaf (TTY/TDD) which allow text colleagues, clients, first responders, messaging over the phone line. government personnel, and others. Telecommunications relay services which allow text to speak conversations through an operator. Use of vibration/text alert instead of audio alerts. Speech impairments Communicating with others SMS/text messaging including educators, peers and Synthesized voice output, text to colleagues, clients, first responders, speech functionality. government personnel, and others Use of virtual picture board and communication solutions. Physical disability loss of mobility, Entering, navigation, and using Voice recognition system. dexterity, and control over some buildings, class rooms, and other Adapted and virtual keyboards. body functions. physical spaces. Joysticks and adapted mouse. Using writing tools such as pens and pencils, keyboards, mouse. Use of eye-gaze and gestures to control device. Remote and online access to work, education, and other services. 4 Central Bank of Sri Lanka - News Survey /Jan - Mar 2020 Cognitive disability includes Difficulty understanding, Text-to-speech rendition and a range of conditions which remembering, or following speech/voice output. may impact a person’s memory, instructions. Touch screen devices.