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114 WORLD DEVELOPMENT REPORT 2016
Box 2.4 Bridging the disability divide through digital technologies
For most people, technology makes things easier. For people with disabilities, it makes things possible.
—Mary Pat Radabaugh, formerly with the IBM National Support Center for Persons with Disabilities
Prakash lost his sight at birth. Today he is a successful
entrepreneur and programmer running his own information
technology (IT) company in a mid-size city in India. Screenreading
and voice-recognition software enable him to use a
computer and write computing programs, and the internet
helps him find and connect with clients. Technology augments
his business and his life.
Around the world, more than 1 billion people have disabilities,
80 percent of them in developing countries. They
face infrastructure and environmental barriers to social,
financial, and civic participation, which digital technologies
can help overcome. Technology enables multiple means
of communication—voice, text, and gestures—to access
information and engage with others. Magnification, voice
recognition, and text-to-speech benefit persons with
visual, cognitive, learning, and mobility disabilities. Short
message service (SMS), instant messaging, telephone
relay, and video captions reduce communication barriers
for those with hearing and speech disabilities. Hands-free
navigation and gesture-controlled interfaces help those
with severe mobility impairments.
But if not designed to be accessible, digital technologies
can widen the disparities between persons with and
without disabilities. Free and low-cost mobile apps offer
increased functionality for persons across the disability
spectrum. Assistive software is available for feature
phones. Accessibility enhancements for web browsers
promote greater internet use by persons with disabilities.
Governments should focus on building the capacity of public
bureaucracies, teachers, vocational trainers, employers,
and information and communication technology (ICT)
professionals to design accessible content and support ICTs
for persons with disabilities; developing the legal, policy,
and regulatory foundation for accessible ICT; supporting,
through public-private partnerships, the development of
accessible ICT, such as local language text-to-speech and
voice-recognition software; and mainstreaming accessibility
in all public services offered through ICT, such as disaster
warnings and communications, public services, and financial
services.
Source: Raja 2015, for the WDR 2016.
providing supporting services. There is high demand
for supporting services in online work, especially
from women. In Souktel, 40 percent of women and
30 percent of men report a need for career coaching. 64
A third challenge is receiving up-to-date vacancy
information, since many postings are stale. Employers
also report a fairly high rate of no-shows for
interviews. A two-side rating system—quality control
on vacancies’ expiration dates, and short message
service (SMS) reminders to candidates selected for
interviews—can address some of these shortcomings.
Making work more flexible
Digital technologies can bring women and new
entrants into the labor market, especially in whitecollar
occupations, by allowing people to work on
different schedules or from different locations. In
Georgia, Romania, and Ukraine, more than 10 percent
of employment is part-time, up from less than 5 percent
a decade earlier. 65 Video conferences and e-mail
make it easier to work away from an office. In the
European Union, telework doubled to reach 9 percent
in the first half of the 2000s, and around 23 percent
of enterprises in the EU-15 employed teleworkers in
2006, up from 16 percent in 2003 and 18 percent in
2004. In the United States, in 2009, one-quarter of
workers used telework regularly. 66
The rise in telework has been particularly rapid
among female workers in Europe. 67 Budget airlines,
such as JetBlue, manage their customer support
centers largely with home workers, mostly women. 68
Telework can also make it easier for youth to combine
school and work and for older workers to work longer.
These new work arrangements can address skill gaps
and increase productivity. Facilitated by the internet,
home-based work in a 16,000-employee travel agency
in China improved worker productivity by 13 percent.
69 And where there is a shortage of doctors, telemedicine
and examinations of digital X-rays can be
very helpful. In Uruguay, through teleconferencing,