Dear Editor,
Guyana’s Government has taken steps to support persons living with disabilities, a group often left behind, especially during the pandemic. A one-off cash grant of GY$50,000 will provide much-needed liquidity to persons with disabilities who face steeper challenges to afford living costs and access essential services and employment. The cash transfer, if efficiently implemented, should meet urgent needs and buy time to push for a longer-term vision of more inclusive social protection.
Cash will help to meet a range of essential costs, from transport to assistive devices to medication to therapy to higher everyday expenses like food and household items. The immediate relief of GY$50,000, especially to households whose budgets are stretched by inflation and other care costs, can be used to pay utility bills or buy durable goods, such as hearing aids and white canes, or to cover short-term needs for additional caregiving. In a country where informal jobs and irregular incomes are the norm, the grant is a source of stability that can contribute to better overall well-being and lower anxiety.
In addition to putting cash in the hands of many persons with disabilities, the grant can create a multiplier effect in neighbourhoods when GY$50,000 is spent on local transport services, neighbourhood shops, and small businesses. This could make the cash transfer’s positive impact visible, particularly in rural or hinterland areas where money circulates faster and other sources of income or Government support may be less readily available.
Cash will not solve the exclusion that persons with disabilities experience daily. This one-off grant must be accompanied by longer-term efforts, including new jobs that are accessible to all, to begin to reverse exclusion from society and the economy. The Government’s announcement of 5000 new jobs for persons with disabilities is therefore welcome.
Creating inclusive jobs for persons with disabilities will tackle one of the largest structural barriers to social protection. Employment is the best form of insurance, and persons with disabilities are much more likely to be poor than persons without disabilities. Labour market exclusion can arise because of stigma, inaccessible work sites, or a lack of resources to pay for an extra worker or accommodation.
Employer-side support for creating accessible and inclusive jobs should be part of the plan. Tax incentives for retrofitting workspaces, wage subsidies, or dedicated spaces to hire and train newly accessible workspaces, as well as an awareness campaign to reduce hesitation or lack of information about hiring persons with disabilities, would remove some of the barriers that make employers reticent to make changes. Awarding Government contracts for services to companies with an accessible hiring plan, or having tax deductions for accessible retrofitting, would send a clear message. Finally, anti-discrimination enforcement and accessible complaint channels should ensure that the new jobs are actually productive, pay a living wage, and are not in isolation, so that people have careers and not just jobs.
Taken together, the one-off cash transfer and the 5000 accessible jobs can be the start of a virtuous cycle for persons with disabilities that provides both immediate support and a pipeline for more long-term inclusion in work and social life. The cash transfer, if efficiently implemented, will provide immediate liquidity, and the 5000 jobs would begin the long, necessary process of normalising accessibility and ensuring inclusion for persons with disabilities.
Guyana has a chance to follow its progressive commitments on disability inclusion in practice and in principle with the equal-opportunity provisions in its constitution. The one-time cash transfer and new jobs for persons with disabilities demonstrate that inclusive policies and programmes are possible and needed.
The one-off cash grant meets urgent needs, and the announcement of 5000 jobs provides a pathway to more inclusive economic and social life in the longer term. Together, the cash transfer and new jobs form part of a continuum of inclusion where the most marginalised can begin to access the protections of the state and to feel included in the fabric of civic and social life.