What is Africa Doing About it?

Laws and Policies - UNCRPD

Mental health in African countries is a relatively underdeveloped issue. There isn't a sufficient amount of laws and policies protecting people with disabilities mental or physical. So the impact of the lack of policies is greater than the actual, almost nonexistent policies themselves. World organizations like the United Nations is actively working to implement programs within more developed countries in Africa like Ghana, Uganda, South Africa and Zambia.

From Social Connectedness

The Convention on the Rights for Person's with Disabilities (CRPD) is one of the first steps taken towards recognizing and advocating for PWDs. According to the, United Nations, the CRPD was first signed by the United Nation's general assembly in 2006 as a worldwide system. Their main goal was to "promote, protect and ensure the full and equal enjoyment of all human rights and fundamental freedoms by all persons with disabilities, and to promote respect for their inherent dignity." Essentially, this was very similar to advocating for overall human rights, for example economic, social and cultural rights, just for people with disabilities. This bill really worked towards implementing anti-discrimination laws which ensures equality between them and others. There were 19 different articles established in the CRPD. But in relation to Africa the only concrete legislative action taken was in South Africa - constitution of South Africa, Chapter 2, Bill of Rights, Section 9: Equality - which included things like freedom, respect, equality, anti-discrimination, protection for PWDS. These primary laws were extremely necessary to begin the fight for rights in the PWDs community which slowly started to lead to more focused concepts. South Africa has signed and approved the CRPD but still had a lot of work to make their systems compliant with the convention's standards. On a happier note, in 2013 they submitted their first country's report to the United Nations and was it approved!

Another project implemented for poor countries for the Mental Health and Poverty Project (MHaPP), by the WHO; with the goal of strengthening mental health systems in low income countries in Africa. There were multiple steps identified that would bring Africa where it needs to be. The plan begins with the government recognizing and committing to the program, next would be analyzing what specific policies and programs would actually make it. The next step involves formulating the specific programs, acknowledging them on an international level to make sure they comply with those standards and finally it ends with writing the policies in to make them legalized.

From Robin Hammond

However, one country stands above all with implementation of mental health policies, the Republic of South Africa. They have formulated a National Mental Health Policy Framework and Strategic Plan covering the years 2013 through 2020. They did this by gathering data of the highest documented and diagnosed mental illnesses under the correct definition. They discussed causes of mental illnesses giving them the ability to pin-point where the prevalence will be the highest. This plan also evaluated necessary budgets, policy mandates, organization, prevent, advocacy/human rights, medication and governmental standards. So in essence, South Africa is taking the right steps towards mental health recognition, treatment etc. However, there are still handfuls of other African countries that need this but due to their lack in resources in other areas like employment and economics, mental health has been put on the back burner being deemed not necessary.

Education

Education in Africa for people without disabilities is already an issue in itself. So the fact that there are even some programs advocating for people with disabilities is extraordinary. One of these programs include the African Education Trust. They work with government schools to help determine which students need more help in the classroom while educating the teachers on how they can provide that assistance. The AET works on problems regarding physical accessibility into buildings, adjusting the curriculum for those who are struggling, and for students who can't attain public schools, blind or deaf, receive recommendations of other schools that can accommodate them the best. 

From IRIN

A lot of other programs focus on inclusive learning. This type of learning is extremely important and necessary because even if students with disabilities are allowed in schools, they are subjectified by stigmas regarding their physical appearances or mental capabilities. These inclusive learning programs would separate children from their peers in order to make learning more personalized and effective. However, it is still important that these students are kept in non-inclusive environments exposing them to all kinds of children differing from them. 

It is found that around only 2% of disabled children across African countries are attending schools, meaning that 1 in four disabled children are being educated (African Report on Children with Disabilities). The WHO found that 40% of Africa's schools populations have students with disabilities that would require some kind of special services. There are no found statistics on high school graduation rates, and especially college, because Africa is set so far behind other countries regarding education in general, and even more for children with disabilities. 

From Philadelphia Tribune

Employment

A study in Northern Ghana was conducted to find the rates of employment in relation to disability and gender. Men and women with and without disabilities were sent into a face-to-face interview with an employer. The data was collected from the employer about which participants were hired and which were declined. Their results found that the majority of people unemployed were person's with disabilities, in particular women (NCBI). Women are largely unemployed in African countries disabled or not because of the gender gap. So women commonly struggle to surpass the poverty line if they suffer from some kind of noticeable disability. This mostly steams from the stigma following disabilities in Africa. Many employers believe that people with disabilities are incapable of completing any task, mental and physical. 

The United Nation's, Division for Social Policy and Development Disability, reports that globally in developing countries, 80-90% of people with disabilities are unemployed whereas in industrialized countries 50-70% are unemployed. The Congo has the highest unemployment rate for general population being 46.10 but Benin has the lowest being 1.00. So the rates vary greatly between countries making it difficult to gage the national unemployment rate. In the United States, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the unemployment rate for person's with disabilities is a little over 10%. So we can imagine that this number would be a lot higher for Africa. 

From ProFellow

Africa is one of the poorest developing continents on the planet, struggling with many things we tend to take for granite like employment and education. People without disabilities in Africa tend to struggle more than people with disabilities in the United States; so it very difficult for us to fathom the amount of difficulty that PWDs face in very undeveloped, struggling countries across Africa.

Works Cited

Abosi, O. (2007). Educating Children with Learning Disabilities in Africa. Learning Disabilities Research & Practice,22(3), 196-201. doi:10.1111/j.1540-5826.2007.00242.x

Developing Effective Mental Health Policies and Plans in Africa. (2011). Mental Health and Poverty Project,90-96. doi:10.1002/9781119979203.ch5

Disability and Employment Enable. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.un.org/development/desa/disabilities/resources/factsheet-on-persons-with-disabilities/disability-and-employment.html

Disability Inclusion - Africa Educational Trust. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://africaeducationaltrust.org/disability-inclusion/

Naami, A. (2015, June 3). Disability, gender, and employment relationships in Africa: The case of Ghana. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5433490/

National Institute of Mental Health Five-Year Strategic Plan for Reducing Health Disparities. (2013). PsycEXTRA Dataset. doi:10.1037/e608152007-001

Nunn, M., Borrel, A., & DeFranco, A. (2014). THE AFRICAN REPORT ON CHILDREN WITH DISABILITIES: PROMISING STARTS AND PERSISTING. The African Report on Children with Disabilities. Retrieved from ACPF.

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. (2017). Disability for Africa. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-43790-3

Unemployment rate of people with a disability 10.5 percent in 2016. (2017, June 26). Retrieved from https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2017/unemployment-rate-of-people-with-a-disability-10-point-5-percent-in-2016.htm?view_full