Inclusion Works Consortium Launches Global Initiative to Enable People With Disabilities to Find Meaningful Employment

Benetech believes in a world where people with
disabilities are able to make their voices heard. We are proud to be a member
of the Inclusion Works program, which launched today in Bangladesh, Kenya,
Nigeria, and Uganda to enable people with disabilities to find meaningful
employment.

In
a statement about the program launch, Sightsavers writes: “It is estimated that
there are 800 million people with disabilities living in low and middle-income
countries. In most countries around the world, people with disabilities face
multiple barriers to employment, which means significant numbers remain
unemployed.”

Vladimir
Cuk from the International Disability Alliance says; “Reliable data about
people with disabilities is often scarce and while we know employment rates are
really low, most programmes tackling this have been on such a small scale that
it hasn’t been possible to make a real dent on the wider system.”

Benetech’s Data for Inclusion platform, inclusive
software to amplify individual voices through data and stories, will be used by
members of the consortium to collect firsthand accounts from people with
disabilities across the globe about barriers to employment. The result is
primary-source data that can inform policy at the local, national, and global
level.

Inclusion Works is a part of the Inclusive Futures
initiative, ensuring people with disabilities are able to represent themselves
and make their own decisions. The brand covers the Inclusion Works and
Disability Inclusive Development programs, both of which are led by Sightsavers
and funded by UK aid.

To learn more about Benetech’s Data for Inclusion platform, contact chiraga@benetech.org

The full release from Sightsavers is available below.

Innovative
programme launched to enable people with disabilities to get decent jobs

One
year on from the first Global Disability Summit, a groundbreaking programme
funded by UK aid is now underway to address the barriers that prevent millions
of people with disabilities from accessing mainstream job markets.

The
programme, called Inclusion Works, represents
one of the world’s most comprehensive attempts to date to redress the
underrepresentation of people with disabilities in formal employment in
developing countries.

UK
aid announced its funding for the programme last year as it co-hosted the first
Global Disability Summit in London.

As
Inclusion Works moves to its next
phase, the programme will pilot new approaches that create job opportunities
for over 2,000 people with disabilities in Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda and
Bangladesh over the next three years.

Simon
Brown, one of the key researchers who has been developing the programme says: “People
with disabilities living in these countries play an integral role in helping us
define what wide-scale success looks like in this programme and in helping us
shape its objectives.” 

“At
the same time, we have also been talking to major companies who clearly want to
tap into this talent pool but need to overcome certain barriers themselves.”

It
is estimated that there are 800 million people with disabilities living in low
and middle-income countries. In most countries around the world, people with
disabilities face multiple barriers to employment, which means significant
numbers remain unemployed.

Low
and middle-income countries are estimated to be collectively losing somewhere
between US$218 and US$510 billion in lost production because people with
disabilities are being excluded from the labour market.* This is more than
three times bigger than the total amount spent on global development, which in
2018 stood at 149.3 billion US dollars.**

Vladimir
Cuk from the International Disability Alliance says; “Reliable data about
people with disabilities is often scarce and while we know employment rates are
really low, most programmes tackling this have been on such a small scale that
it hasn’t been possible to make a real dent on the wider system.”

“UK
aid funding is expected to be game-changing in this respect. Inclusion Works is aiming to make a significant contribution towards
greater compliance of the formal employment sector with the Convention on the
Rights of Persons with Disabilities, changing the whole culture around recruiting and retaining people
with disabilities to work and earn
a living in equal conditions to others.”

Inclusion Works aims to work in
partnership with over 100 employers to test new practices that are compliant
with UN disability rights protocols. It will be designed to include people of a
wide range of disabilities, including blind-deafness and intellectual
disabilities.

The
programme is being led by charity Sightsavers in a coalition that brings
together the expertise of 11 partner organisations including ADD International,
BBC Media Action, Benetech, Development Initiatives, Humanity and Inclusion UK,
Inclusion International, the International Disability Alliance, the Institute
of Development Studies, Standard Chartered Bank and the Youth Career
Initiative.

This
work is part of the Inclusive Futures initiative, a wider drive funded by UK
aid to create an equal world for people with disabilities in developing
countries.

Ends

For
further details, interviews and case studies contact: Maria Fsadni,
Sightsavers’ Senior PR and Media Officer on 01444 446677/ mfsadni@sightsavers.org

Notes to editor:

Sources:

*
Collective lost production is a rough estimation. To work out these numbers we
used a study by the International Labour Organization study that concluded that
excluding people with disabilities from the labour market results in a
significant loss of GDP falling into a band between 3 and 7% of GDP for 10
middle and low-income countries. (The Price of Exclusion, ILO, page 51) http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/@ed_emp/@ifp_skills/documents/publication/wcms_119305.pdf.

We
applied these percentages to the World Bank’s latest GDP figures showing
collective GDP of low-income countries and lower-middle-income countries.

**
Figure on total amount spent on global development for 2018: http://www.oecd.org/development/development-aid-drops-in-2018-especially-to-neediest-countries.htm

About Inclusion Works

Inclusion
Works is a Consortium programme of 11
partners, led by Sightsavers, focussing on the economic empowerment of people
with disabilities.

Inclusion Works consortium has disabled people’s
organisations at its core and works directly with people with disabilities,
other NGOs, and prospective private and public employers to demonstrate how
people with disabilities can participate equally in the workplace.

It aims to create opportunities for people with all
types of disability including those with deaf-blindness and intellectual
disabilities.

The
Inclusion Works programme is a part of the Inclusive Futures initiative. The
brand covers the Inclusion Works and Disability Inclusive Development
programmes, both of which are led by Sightsavers and funded by UK aid.

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Source: Benetech