Disability Inclusion Overview

One billion people, or 15% of the world’s population, experience some form of disability, and disability prevalence is higher for developing countries.

Persons with disabilities are more likely to experience adverse socioeconomic outcomes such as less education, poorer health outcomes, lower levels of employment, and higher poverty rates. Poverty may increase the risk of disability through malnutrition, inadequate access to education and health care, unsafe working conditions, a polluted environment, and lack of access to safe water and sanitation. Disability may also increase the risk of poverty, through lack of employment and education opportunities, lower wages, and increased cost of living with a disability.

Barriers to full social and economic inclusion of persons with disabilities include inaccessible physical environments and transportation, the unavailability of assistive devices and technologies, non-adapted means of communication, gaps in service delivery, and discriminatory prejudice and stigma in society.

Global awareness of disability-inclusive development is increasing. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) ratified by 185 countries, promotes the full integration of persons with disabilities in societies. The CRPD specifically references the importance of international development in addressing the rights of persons with disabilities.

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development clearly states that disability cannot be a reason or criteria for lack of access to development programming and the realization of human rights. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) framework includes seven targets which explicitly refer to persons with disabilities, and six further targets on persons in vulnerable situations, which include persons with disabilities.

The wide-reaching impacts of COVID-19 continue to affect persons with disabilities including in the sectors of health, education, and transport considerations.

In the area of health, many persons with disabilities have additional underlying health needs that make them particularly vulnerable to severe symptoms of COVID-19 if they contract it. Persons with disabilities were also at increased risk of contracting COVID-19 because information about the disease, including the symptoms and prevention, are not commonly provided in accessible formats such as print materials in Braille, sign language interpretation, captions, audio provision, and graphics.

With widespread school closures, children with disabilities lacked access to basic services such as meal programs; assistive technologies; access to resource personnel; recreation programs; extracurricular activities; and water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) programs. COVID-19 led to a sudden shift in the role of the parent/caregiver to act simultaneously as their teachers, in addition to exacerbating the digital divide between learners related to access to equipment, electricity, and the internet.

Last Updated: Apr 03, 2023

Including persons with disabilities and expanding equitable opportunities are at the core of the World Bank’s work to build sustainable, inclusive communities, aligned with the institution’s goals to end extreme poverty and promote shared prosperity.

The World Bank integrates disability into development through its analytical work, data collection, and good-practice policies. The Bank also addresses disability issues in its operations across a wide range of sectors, including promoting access to infrastructure facilities and social services, rehabilitation, skills development, creating economic opportunities, and working with Organizations for Persons with Disabilities, focusing on the most vulnerable among people with disabilities, such as women and children, and influencing policies and institutional development. The Global Disability Advisor’s team serves as a focal point for ongoing advisory and analytical support to operational teams on disability-inclusive approaches in project design and implementation. The World Bank revised its Disability Inclusion and Accountability Framework in 2022, the initial version of which was launched in June 2018, to offer a roadmap for:

Including disability in the World Bank’s policies, operations, and analytical work; and

Building internal capacity for supporting clients in implementing disability-inclusive development programs.

The framework is relevant to policymakers, government officials, other development organizations, and persons with disabilities.

In July 2018, the World Bank Group made Ten Commitments to accelerate global action for disability-inclusive development in key areas such as education, digital development, data collection, gender, post-disaster reconstruction, transport, private sector investments, and social protection. The World Bank group has updated some of these commitments in 2022 as it continues to invest in disability-inclusive development. These are:

Ensuring that all WB-financed education programs and projects are disability-inclusive by 2025.

Ensuring that all WB-financed digital development projects are disability sensitive, including through the use of universal design and accessibility standards.

Scaling up disability data collection and use, including by strengthening institutions and building capacity to reduce gaps in the availability of disability-disaggregated core data for evidence-based policy making, guided by global standards and best practices, such as using the Washington Group’s Short Set on Functioning.

Analyze data on the socio-economic inclusion of women with disabilities in legal and policy frameworks by Women, Business and the Law team to build evidence for better protection of the rights of women with disabilities in WBG operations.

Ensuring that all projects financing public facilities in post-disaster reconstruction are disability-inclusive.

Ensuring that all WB-financed urban mobility and rail projects that support public transport services are disability-inclusive by 2025.

Enhancing due diligence on private sector projects financed by the International Finance Corporation (IFC) regarding disability inclusion and strengthen IFC’s signaling on the importance of the private sector for disability inclusion by making the following commitments which reflect our ongoing work in this area.

Ensuring that 75% of WB-financed social protection projects are disability-inclusive by 2025.

Foster a more Inclusive Environment in the World Bank Group (by implementing the disability inclusion strategy

Promoting the updated Disability Inclusion and Accountability Framework among World Bank staff as a way to support the WB’s Environmental and Social Framework (ESF).

The World Bank’s Environmental and Social Framework (ESF) includes a strong provision designed to make sure that the interests of persons with disabilities are protected and included, requiring the borrower to look specifically at disability as part of any social assessments.

The ESF makes several direct references to safeguarding the interests of persons with disabilities and protecting them from unsafe working conditions. It encourages countries to undertake reasonable accommodation measures to adapt the workplace to include workers with disabilities, as well as to provide information in accessible formats. Furthermore, the ESF also requires client countries to undertake meaningful consultations with stakeholders to learn their views on project risks, impacts, and mitigation measures.

In addition, the World Bank has issued a Directive on addressing project risks and impacts on disadvantaged and vulnerable groups, which also addresses the inclusion of persons with disabilities. The Disability Inclusion and Accountability Framework is aligned with the ESF and will offer a thematic blueprint to support disability-inclusive investments.

Working with the International Development Association

The World Bank has strengthened its commitments to ensure the systematic inclusion of persons with disabilities in World Bank projects by way of support to and in the development of services provided to IDA countries.

IDA20, our latest financing package for the world’s poorest countries, has adopted a standalone commitment to embed disability inclusion across core services, with a special focus on projects in education, health, social protection, water, urban, digital development, and transport. IDA19, its predecessor, recognized disability inclusion as a cross cutting theme and made explicit reference to disability in six policy commitments.

Last Updated: Apr 03, 2023

Global analysis and good practice:

Since the 2011 publication of the joint World Bank-World Health Organization World Report on Disability the World Bank has committed to building the evidence base on disability-inclusive development. Within the scope prescribed by the Ten Commitments on Disability-Inclusive Development, the World Bank produces independent empirical studies and analysis on the intersection of disability inclusion and inclusive education, transport, water, digital development, and others. Here are some of our recent analytics:

The World Bank has developed a series of good practice guidance notes to ensure that disability inclusion is embedded across the spectrum of Bank operations. The World Bank Technical Note on Accessibility describes various accessibility barriers, recommendations, methodologies, and strategies across sectors. While the note is primarily meant for World Bank Task Teams, Project Implementing Units (PIUs) and Environmental & Social (E&S) specialists it can be widely used by all interested stakeholders. A toolkit on Including Women and Girls with Disabilities in World Bank Operations aims to increase inclusion of women and girls with disabilities across WBG projects.

Additional technical guidance notes on health, citizen engagement, disaster risk management, water, and education provide action-oriented direction for government officials and decisionmakers in the areas.

The World Bank also facilitates learning and knowledge sharing. An e-course, Collecting Data on Disability Inclusion, provides technical knowledge on disability disaggregated data to support disability-inclusive development. The World Bank partnered with UNICEF and WaterAid to launch a self-paced e-course Taking action to achieve inclusive WASH to support water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) practitioners and decision makers on relevant concepts, tools and mechanisms to ensure WASH programs, services and facilities are accessible to persons with disabilities in development and humanitarian contexts.

Operational Examples

In Indonesia, the Institutional Strengthening for Improved Village Service is supporting the Ministry of Villages to roll out a pilot called Desa Inklusif or Inclusive Villages. This project aims to develop the space and opportunity for all village residents to participate equally and meaningfully in village development. Community empowerment is at the core of the pilot’s approach and is translated through supporting activities to increase the participation of all village community in realizing social justice. Target groups include women and children, the elderly, people with disabilities, customary law communities, minority residents, and the extreme poor. The pilot will roll out in 80 districts across Indonesia within the next 2 years.
In Rwanda, the Rwanda Quality Basic Education Project has incorporated inclusive design within the national school infrastructure expansion (additional 22,500 classrooms and 31,000 toilets) funded by the project. This includes classroom access using ramps, spacious latrines to accommodate wheelchairs, ramps and access features within school compounds, and accessible blackboards for students and teachers with disabilities. The project is further supporting teacher training to support children with disabilities and accessible learning materials.
In Nigeria, the Nigeria Digital Identification for Development Project included extensive stakeholder consultation processes with persons with disabilities, aimed at ascertaining the challenges that persons with different types of disabilities face in applying for and receiving unique identification. Insights and recommendations from these stakeholder consultations shaped differentiated measures in project design including (i) using Organizations of Persons with Disabilities (OPDs) to serve as enrollment providers to facilitate outreach to persons with disabilities through trusted intermediaries and (ii) ensuring exceptional data capture and processing requirements for any persons who are unable to provide the required biometrics (e.g. iris scans due to visual disabilities, fingerprints due to physical disabilities).

In the Horn of Africa (Djibouti, Kenya, Ethiopia & Uganda), disability is included in the Development Response to Displacement Impacts Project (DRDIP). This project supports a critical fragility hot spot in Africa bringing resources to cope with COVID-19 to refugee and displaced people’s communities - a population that is normally at risk of being excluded from government support. In Kenya, the livelihood component of the project has prioritized support to persons with disabilities. For example, 21 economic activity groups of persons with disabilities have been supported in Kenya in recent months and they are receiving business development training through facilitating partners.
In India, the Tamil Nadu Rural Transformation Project (TNRTP) introduced the COVID-19 Assistance Package (CAP; US$40m) to accelerate investments and leverage community/collective groups to respond directly to the COVID-19 crisis. CAP is supporting nano and micro-enterprises in rural areas that are facing a crisis owing to the reduced economic activities and changed business scenario from the pandemic. TNRTP has put special emphasis on supporting persons with disabilities under the CAP initiative. Out of the six categories of individual assistance under CAP, one category is exclusively dedicated to the livelihoods support to persons with disabilities.
In Bangladesh, the World Bank partnered with Leonard Cheshire, a UK-based leading NGO working on global disability inclusion, on the Innovating Pathways to Employment Initiative to support policy dialogue on skills development and jobs creation for persons with disabilities. A policy note on Accelerating Employment of Persons with Disabilities in Bangladesh was developed based on findings of an in-depth literature review policy analysis, and consultations with multiple stakeholders including persons with disabilities. The note offers key action recommendations under the themes of policy, social protection, self-employment, wage employment, education and skills development, gender and intersectionality considerations, accessibility and reasonable accommodations, data, access to justice, and stigma. Insights from this work led to specific recommendations on inclusive employment in Bangladesh’s 8th Five-Year Plan. The team is stepping up operational support for the implementation of these action recommendations through the Bangladesh Accelerating and Strengthening Skills for Economic Transformation (ASSET) Project, co-led by the EDU and SSI GPs, which includes specific indicators and targets on disability inclusion.

Trust-funded Projects:

The Inclusive Education Initiative (IEI), a multi-donor trust fund with support from the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad) and the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), invested in catalytic technical expertise and knowledge resources that support countries in making education progressively inclusive for children across the spectrum of disabilities. The IEI had three focus countries, Rwanda, Ethiopia, and Nepal and supported projects in a number of other countries:

In Rwanda, the IEI has conducted a comprehensive mapping and review of resource classrooms and assessment centers, along with strengthen Education Management Information System (EMIS), technical assistance, and targeted capacity building.
In Pakistan, with funding from the IEI, the Actions to Strengthen Performance for Inclusive and Responsive Education Program (ASPIRE) project conducted a study entitled “Knowledge, Voice, and Action: Scaling up investments in the education of girls with disabilities in Pakistan.” This mixed-methods study unpacked and analyzed data on supply- and demand- side barriers to educating children with disabilities in Pakistan, with a focus on girls with disabilities. The findings from this work will be used to inform the policy dialogue around supporting and funding education services for children with disabilities.
Bangladesh was included as a case study in the Inclusive Education Initiative’s Landscape Review of ICT for Disability-Inclusive Education to gather insights from the experiences of multiple stakeholders including teachers, parents/caregivers, government officials, and civil society in delivering accessing digital learning solutions for children across the spectrum of disabilities. The report documented the current status and trends in the use of ICT in improving the educational participation and outcomes of children with disabilities with recommendations for an ecosystem-wide response.

The Disability-Inclusive Education in Africa Program, with funding from USAID, invested in regional diagnostics and programmatic interventions in Ethiopia, Ghana, Lesotho, Liberia, Senegal, The Gambia, and Zambia. The program built practitioner capacity through technical learning sessions and knowledge products.

Last Updated: Apr 03, 2023

Partnerships play a critical role at the strategic level, by developing policy and institutional frameworks, and at the project level, through joint implementation with civil society and organizations of persons with disabilities and community-based organizations to promote disability inclusion.

The World Bank partners with bilateral donors on disability inclusive education. Specifically, Norad and FCDO supported the Inclusive Education Initiative (IEI). USAID supported the Disability-Inclusive Education in Africa Program.
The World Bank partnered with UNICEF and USAID to deliver a comprehensive technical learning series on the essential components of the enabling environment and service delivery that can support efforts to create inclusive education systems for all, including students with disabilities, and help reach the Sustainable Development Goal of equitable quality education for all by 2030.

The World Bank launched a new partnership with Microsoft Inc. to expand access to and the use of demographics and statistics data on persons with disabilities, particularly in low- and middle-income countries. The goal of this effort is to develop a public facing, online “disability data hub” to offer information on persons with disabilities across populations, geographies, and development indicators.
The World Bank is an active member of the Global Action Network on Disability engaging in dialogue and knowledge sharing with bilateral and multilateral donors and agencies, private sector and foundations to accelerate disability-inclusive development. The Bank co-chaired the GLAD Working Group on Disability and Climate Change.
The World Bank serves as an observer to the United Nations’ Inter Agency Support Group (IASG) on the implementation of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) and provided comment on the United Nations Development Inclusion Strategy (UN-DIS). The Bank also actively participated in the 12th UN Conference of States Parties to the CRPD in New York. It also co-hosted the Public Forum event on “Taking Action towards a Disability-Inclusive Disaster Risk Reduction (DiDRR) Framework (HFA2) and its Implementation” in Sendai, Japan.

Last Updated: Apr 03, 2023