Committee launches new inquiry on disability-inclusive development

• International Development Committee

The inquiry will consider the adequacy and effectiveness of the FCDO’s disability and inclusion rights strategy, launched in February 2022, including the consequences for disability-inclusive programmes of the decision to cut aid spending from 0.7% to 0.5% of GNI.

The Committee last year obtained and published an FCDO equalities impact assessment that highlighted the likely impact of significant cuts to disability-inclusive aid programmes.

Chair's comment

The Chair of the International Development Committee, Sarah Champion MP, said: 

“Against a policy backdrop where the rights and needs of people with disabilities can too often be forgotten, the decision to cut aid spending from 0.7% to 0.5% of GNI has consequences. The equalities impact assessment obtained and published by the Committee last year gave us an idea of the likely impact of significant cuts on disability-inclusive aid programmes.

“The FCDO’s disability and inclusion rights strategy has been broadly welcomed, but there are concerns about FCDO’s commitment to education equality, particularly for disabled women and girls and disabled members of the LGBT+ community. And it’s not clear how the commitment to ‘mainstream’ disability inclusion will be implemented or monitored.”

“We would like to invite evidence from as broad a range of stakeholders as possible, including on how effective FCDO was in reaching and consulting them to develop its strategy and approach in the first place.”

Key questions for the inquiry include:

• The adequacy of FCDO’s new disability and inclusion rights strategy as a framework for approaching disability-inclusive development
• The adequacy of FCDO’s spending on disability-inclusive programmes and the impact of cuts to ODA programmes on people with disabilities
• FCDO’s work to encourage and facilitate the participation of people with disabilities, and relevant advocacy groups, in developing its strategy and approach
• The extent to which other ODA-spending departments are ensuring that their ODA expenditure is inclusive of people with disabilities
• The role of the UK in disability inclusion within the global humanitarian and development community
• Safeguarding issues within disability inclusion that should be prioritised in FCDO’s work tackling sexual exploitation and abuse in the aid sector
• FCDO’s learning from other approaches and global work on disability inclusion
• FCDO’s progress in implementing the Committee’s previous recommendations, and the commitments made at the Global Disability Summit

Submitting written evidence

The committee welcomes evidence to inform its inquiry from a wide range of people. These may include experts, stakeholders, government leaders and officials - but we welcome contributions from anyone with insights. In this instance we will be gathering written information until a deadline of Monday 4 September 2023. Submit written evidence via our call for evidence page.

For information on how to submit written information to us, and how we then use that information, please see here. As well as taking written evidence the committee will hold question and answer sessions. These sessions will take place in public and will be announced in advance on our website.

Reasonable adjustments

If you need an adjustment to help you send your evidence, please get in touch with committee staff by email or call 020 7219 1223/3260. They’ll be able to talk about what we can do to help you send your evidence, so far as reasonably practical. That might include sending it to us in a different format or giving you more time to prepare your evidence. We’ll be happy to help you.

Further information

• About Parliament: Select committees
• Visiting Parliament: Watch committees

Image: UK Parliament / Tyler Allicock