Making Inclusive Development a Reality

Ten Essential Strategies

1. Make offices, meeting spaces, and program facilities and services physically accessible. Build or renovate according to universal design practices, to ensure physical access for people of all ages, situations, and abilities.
2. Use alternate formats to ensure communication and information are accessible (these could include recorded information, easy-to-read formats, sign language, Braille, etc).
3. Train staff on inclusion and the human rights model of disability at the headquarter level and also in field offices.
4. Form relationships with local Disabled People’s Organizations (DPOs) and invite them to participate in program planning and implementation. Develop a contact list of DPO contacts.
5. Conduct outreach to people with disabilities. Local DPOs are invaluable resources for identifying people with disabilities in community.
6. Recruit people with disabilities as staff and volunteers.
7. Budget for inclusion. Plan for the cost of reasonable accommodations (3-5% for program costs and 1-3% for administrative costs is a good estimate to start with) in program and organizational budgets, to ensure that all program participants can benefit fully and employees can do their jobs effectively.
8. Use images of people with disabilities in your promotional materials to show the diverse populations that your organization and programs should serve.
9. Capture and report on your inclusion of people with disabilities in your program results. Collect and disaggregate by disability to show how people with disabilities are participating in your programs, and to demonstrate the diversity and effectiveness of your organizational reach.
10. Incorporate inclusion of people with disabilities as a selection criterion in solicitations for project proposal. Assign a score for disability inclusion which requires applicants to:

• Show evidence of linkages with existing disability programs or organizations.
• Illustrate how people with disabilities will be involved in the design, implementation, and evaluation of the program.
• Ensure that women with disabilities will participate in and benefit from activities.