Disability Inclusion

Over one billion people, or 16% 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 exacerbate the risk of poverty, through lack of education and resulting limited employment 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.

Households with disabled persons are disproportionately food insecure due to constrained economic resources due to higher poverty and lower employment rates than persons without disabilities. In situations of humanitarian crisis and conflict, persons with disabilities are more likely to face violence, exploitation or abuse and have two to four times higher mortality rates.

Last Updated: Apr 09, 2025

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: 

1. Including disability in the World Bank’s policies, operations, and analytical work; and
2. 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: 

1. Ensuring that all WB-financed education programs and projects are disability-inclusive by 2025.
2. Ensuring that all WB-financed digital development projects are disability sensitive, including through the use of universal design and accessibility standards. 
3. 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.
4. 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. 
5. Ensuring that all projects financing public facilities in post-disaster reconstruction are disability-inclusive.
6. Ensuring that all WB-financed urban mobility and rail projects that support public transport services are disability-inclusive by 2025. 
7. 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.
8. Ensuring that 75% of WB-financed social protection projects are disability-inclusive by 2025. 
9. Foster a more Inclusive Environment in the World Bank Group (by implementing the disability inclusion strategy
10. Promoting the updated Disability Inclusion and Accountability Framework among World Bank staff as a way to support the World Bank’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.

Last Updated: Apr 09, 2025

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:

• Disability and Road Traffic Accidents: Assessing the Costs and Consequences of Rehabilitation and Living with a Disability Following a Road Traffic Injury

• Accelerating the Inclusion of Persons with Disabilities in Uzbekistan’s Digital Economy

• Multidimensional Determinants of Disability-Inclusive Education: Lessons from Rwanda, Sierra Leone, and Zambia

• Climate Change and Disability Inclusion in Uzbekistan

• Approaches to Deliver Inclusive Education in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia

• Breaking Barriers - Disability Inclusion in Latin America and the Caribbean

• ICT Landscape Review: The use of ICT in improving the educational participation and outcomes of children with disabilities

• Pivoting to Inclusion: Leveraging Lessons from the COVID-19 Crisis for Learners with Disabilities

• Learners with Disabilities and COVID-19 School Closures: Findings from a Global Survey Conducted by the World Bank’s Inclusive Education Initiative

• Equity and Inclusion in Education in World Bank Projects: Persons with Disabilities, Indigenous Peoples, and Sexual and Gender Minorites

• Every Learner Matters: Unpacking the Learning Crisis for Children with Disabilities

• The Challenge of Inclusive Education in Sub-Saharan Africa

• Looking Ahead: Visual Impairment and School Eye Health Programs

• Brief on Violence Against Women and Girls with Disabilities

• Disability Inclusion in Latin America and the Caribbean

• Digital Jobs for Youth with Disabilities

• Creating Disability Inclusive ID Systems

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 decision makers 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 Pakistan, the Sindh Floods Housing Reconstruction Project is supporting disability inclusion by prioritizing the inclusion of persons with disabilities in project interventions and mainstreaming disability considerations through the adoption of Universal Design. The project design was informed by analysis which identified key barriers faced by persons with disabilities in relation to housing infrastructure and ownership. In response, the project has incorporated Universal Design into the development of the multi hazard resilient housing minimum standards and technical training. In addition, households with persons with disabilities are prioritized for housing reconstruction and home ownership support.

• In Mauritania, persons with disabilities face multiple challenges participating in economic activity and finding employment. The Youth Employability Project aims to address barriers to participation through targeted outreach to youth with disabilities, to increase their participation in technical and life skills trainings, and micro entrepreneurship support. This will be supported through collaboration with organizations of persons with disabilities and awareness raising amongst project staff. Furthermore, the number of youth with disabilities participating in the project is monitored within the results framework.

• In Haiti, persons with disabilities lack access to basic services including access to water and accessible toilets. The Sustainable and Resilient Rural Water and Sanitation Sector Support Project prioritizes the needs of persons with disabilities by ensuring the design and construction of disability inclusive water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) facilities and engaging persons with disabilities through accessible and inclusive consultations. Disability disaggregated data and indicators specific to accessible WASH infrastructure will be used to monitor disability inclusion.

• 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  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 09, 2025

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