Disabled Women, Urbanization and Sustainable Development in Africa

This chapter focuses on the politics of inclusion of disabled women’s relationships to urbanization and sustainable development. The chapter makes use of a postcolonial framework to assess the barriers to a politics of access and inclusion for disabled women in Zimbabwe and, more broadly, in a pan-African context, and calls for the adoption of Ubuntu, an indigenous concept that recognizes the vitality of community and the interconnectivity of all species. It further discusses challenges faced by disabled women in their quest to participate in urban development. The chapter adopts the social model of disability to interpret the meaning of disability, in which it is viewed as a social construct. The chapter further discusses how disabled women are marginalized by male-dominated disabled people’s organizations and mainstream women’s advocacy group due to their womanhood and impairment respectively. The dangers of using confrontational approaches to disability activism and advocates for non-confrontational ways in order to promote meaningful participation of disabled women in urban development are highlighted. After an examination of dominant frameworks for sustainability and urbanization and the engagement of national non-governmental organizations, the chapter urges for more inclusive disability politics in African urban contexts.