Towards inclusion: a guide for organisations and practitioners

Inclusive development aims to create societies that value and enfranchise all marginalized groups, including vulnerable girls, women and persons with disabilities. 

This publication consists of three parts. It aims to establish the rationale for inclusion and provides technical advice and tools for putting theory into practice. It is intended to be used as a reference during organizational and program/project development with a focus on gender responsiveness and disability inclusion as well as a tool to support good practice in implementation. Users may include senior management and board members who wish to steer their organizations towards becoming more inclusive. It is not assumed that they will have prior knowledge of gender and/or disability, although familiarity with inclusive approaches is useful, as the document does not seek to repeat information about inclusion in a broader sense.

This first part guides the reader through the process of assessing whether or not the organization is ready to change towards becoming a more inclusive organization. The second part introduces the ACAP framework, which sets up a way of approaching inclusion via focus on the areas: Access, Communication, Attitude and Participation. It then demonstrates how the framework can be applied to projects and programmes. The third part provides guidelines for the people who will guide organizations through the process of change towards becoming inclusive of persons from marginalized groups.