Resource Type
Newsletter
Celebrating 100,000 Members
THANK YOU!!
Dear IEI Members,
We hope you are doing well. We are truly grateful for your continuous participation and contributions, and for your passion for achieving the goal of ensuring all children have access to quality, inclusive education. This community would not exist without you!
We are happy to celebrate reaching 100,000 on our LinkedIn Group!
In this spring 2026 edition, we are sharing all the latest resources and news on inclusive education to support your journey towards creating inclusive spaces for all students.
Please keep reaching out to us to share publications, videos, events, blog posts or anything else you would like featured on the IEI website . We are happy to feature your work on disability-inclusive education. You can email us at iei@worldbank.org or join our LinkedIn Group and post questions directly there.
Best Wishes
The Inclusive Education Initiative Team
Upcoming Events
Conference of State Parties (COSP) to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) - 19th Session
Date: June 9-11, 2026
Location: UN Headquarters, New York City, USA
Theme: “CRPD at 20: celebrating and consolidating achievements and shaping the next phase of implementation in a changing world”.COSP to the CRPD will host its 19th Session in New York City. You are encouraged to apply to host a side event. As we know about side events related to inclusive education, we will share them!
Past Events
Date: February 12-13, 2026
About: FCDO, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), International Centre for Evidence in Disability (ICED), and International Disability Alliance (IDA) brought stakeholders together to share evidence of what works in inclusive education and to discuss the remaining, often context-specific, challenges.
Check out the outcomes statement that came from this dialogue.
Inclusive Childcare and Maternal Employment
The impacts of inclusive childcare on the workforce participation of mothers with children with disabilities have not been explored in LMICs. This session launching the report, “Employment and Inclusive Childcare for Mothers of Children with Disabilities”, shared findings from research focusing on three countries in East Africa: Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda.
The Zero Project Conference 2026 brought together innovators, policy makers, business leaders, practitioners, and other experts from around the world. The #ZeroCon26 Agenda covered emerging trends, key areas for disability inclusion, as well as specific topics relating to Accessibility, Information and Communication Technology (ICT), and Crisis Response. Recordings from many of the sessions can be found on the website.
Disability Inclusive Education Sector Planning CoP
The IIEP-UNESCO in Africa has created a global Community of Practice on disability-inclusive sector planning (CoP-DIESP) that fosters knowledge exchange and collaboration to strengthen disability-inclusive education systems worldwide. Check out their latest event, "Financing the Future: Scaling equitable early childhood education" here.
Knowledge Hub
World Bank
Feature Story
Burkina Faso Improving Education of Children with Disabilities
With over 72% of children with disabilities out of school, Burkina Faso faces significant challenges in ensuring inclusive education. Barriers such as inadequate infrastructure, lack of teacher training, and societal stigma prevent many children from accessing quality learning opportunities. Recognizing these challenges, the World Bank launched the Burkina Faso Improving Education of Children with Disabilities project.
Results Brief
Breaking Barriers, Building Futures: Disability Inclusion in Education
The World Bank is supporting disability-inclusive education in Rwanda, Burkina Faso, and Cambodia by training teachers, upgrading school infrastructure, and embedding disability support in school improvement plans. These efforts have enabled tens of thousands of children with disabilities to access quality education, fostering greater inclusion and expanding future opportunities.
External Stakeholders
Reports
UNICEF
Services mapping for children with disabilities in Bangladesh: Findings from a Self-Reported National Facility Assessment
Service mapping for children with disabilities in Bangladesh is the first nationwide study mapped 211 facilities across 25 districts, revealing major gaps in accessibility, quality, and inclusion. While many institutions provide education, rehabilitation, or social protection, only one-third are fully functional, leaving children with disabilities among the least likely to access health, learning, or recreation.
Journal Articles and Papers
Disability and Society
New approaches to categorizing childhood disability: An international comparative analysis of the UNICEF/Washington Group child functioning module The Child Functioning Module (CFM) assesses children’s functional difficulties in multiple domains. Cut-off points are defined to identify children with disabilities, and for use in international monitoring activities. While appropriate for many uses, the recommended cut-offs limit representation of the patterns of multiple co-occurring difficulties.
Stimulating inclusive outdoor play: Breaking the vicious circle between physical segregation and lack of social acceptance
Inclusive play is a critical catalyst for social inclusion and has developmental benefits for all children. The research presented in this journal article explores barriers that adult stakeholders perceive towards inclusion of children with disabilities in “playing together” with peers with and without disabilities.
Defining and measuring what matters: Quality of life for children with disabilities
The quality of life of children with disabilities improves when health systems move beyond survival-oriented biomedical interventions and metrics, and promote participation and wellbeing. This Viewpoint provides examples of how health professionals and health systems can expand their interest beyond impairment-focused care to partner with families, adopt practices that promote children's own perspectives on what matters most, and create disability-inclusive environments.
Understanding the Impact of Early Childhood and Primary Education for Children with Neurodevelopmental Disabilities on Parents in Nigeria
This paper aims to discuss how mothers interpret their experiences of educating their children with neurodevelopmental disabilities, the multidimensional impact of these experiences on their personal and family lives, and what their experiences reveal about broader structural and systemic inequalities.
In the News
Uganda Inclusive Education Project
Sightsavers
January 2, 2026
Sightsavers is working in partnership with the Ugandan Ministry of Education and Sports to support government efforts to strengthen inclusive education across the country by improving teachers’ training and development.
"I always climb the bench like a mountain": The design failures shutting children with dwarfism out of Sierra Leone's schools
Minority Africa
DEC 2, 2025
Basic school infrastructure in Sierra Leone remains built without children with disabilities in mind, leaving students with short stature to work around desks, boards, and toilets that rarely meet their physical needs.
Can AI help bridge the gap in inclusive education?
UNICEF
OCT 2025
In a classroom in Uruguay, students follow a lesson about the yacar, an alligator species native to the country. Some focus on the colorful visuals on their laptop screens, while others listen to the audio narration coming through the device speaker. Even though the students have different learning preferences and face different barriers, they are all engaging in the same lesson together.
Building more equitable and inclusive education systems for children with disabilities
Global Partnership for Education
December 17, 2025
Read how the partnership is driving progress toward more equitable, gender responsive and disability inclusive education systems to ensure that every child, no matter their background or ability, has access to quality education.
The Global State of Inclusion in Education: The Year of the Teacher
Special Olympics’ Chairman, Dr. Timothy Shriver, has released the 2026 Global State of Inclusion in Education letter in recognition of the International Day of Education. This year’s message focuses on a critical global challenge we’re seeing everywhere: the growing shortage of well-prepared, well-supported teachers—and why addressing it is essential to making inclusive education work for all learners.
We want to hear from you!
Please share your disability-inclusive education activities, success stories, upcoming events, and other exciting resources with us. Please connect to our website: https://www.inclusive-education-initiative.org/communityor send to iei@worldbank.org
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