Donor Support to Inclusive Education for Children with Disabilities: Who Does What in GPE Partner Countries - September 2024

Oct 15, 2026

Donor and partner support to inclusive education for children with disabilities in GPE partner countries remains too low and uneven to enable education-system transformation. The paper maps major development partners’ thematic and geographic focus areas, drawing on public resources, International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI) project data, and an organizational staff survey. Findings highlight extensive interventions, a common twin-track approach, gaps in mainstreaming inclusion, and emphasis on data systems, accessibility, teacher capacity, collaboration, and country-level coordination.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages51

Reading Time2 h 9 min

AccessFree to download

Acknowledgments

Summary

Key findings

Donor support to inclusive education forchildren with disabilities: who does what in GPE partner countries? September 2024 The Global Partnership for Education (GPE) publishes background papers to disseminate the findings of work in progress and encourage the exchange of ideas about development issues. This is part of a larger effort by the GPE Secretariat to provide open access to its analytical work and contribute to discussions about evidence in education. The authors of the papers should be cited. The findings, interpretations and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of GPE and its affiliated organizations, or those of the GPE Board of Directors or the governments they represent. Acknowledgments This paper was authored by Stuart Cameron, Sophia D’Angelo, Daniela Gamboa Zapatel and Maria Qureshi, with support and input from Raphaelle Martinez, AnnaMaria Tammi and Raisa Venäläinen from the GPE Secretariat. We are grateful to Jane Sunderland for copyediting this paper and to Sally Gear and Margaret Irving for their feedback in finalizing the paper. The paper is based on inputs from colleagues in partner organizations, including Asma Maladwala, Claudia Cappa, Sakshi Mishra, Lucy Richardson, Natasha Graham, Mita Gupta, Helene Cron and Wongani Grace Taulo (UNICEF); Hanna Alasuutari, Ruchi Singhand Charlotte McClain-Nhlapo (World Bank); Elin Ruud, Grant Dansie and Lena Sømme (NORAD); Paula Malan (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Finland); Rachel Freeth, Freya Perry, Ian Attfield and Charlotte Hurton (FCDO); and Leah Maxson, Meghan Hussey and Joshua Josa (USAID). We are extremely grateful for the time and attention they gave to support this work. We are also very grateful to the Global Action on Disability (GLAD) Network, which ran a survey used in the paper. An early version of this paper was presented to the GLAD Inclusive Education Working Group, and participants provided valuable feedback. Any errors or omissions are the authors’ own. Summary Children with disabilities remain among the most excluded from education in GPE partner countries and other lower-income countries. Despite considerable activity funded both through GPE and by other donors, as well as by partner countries themselves, the level of international support to inclusive education remains too low and patchy for countries to transform their education systems so they are fully inclusive of children with disabilities. Development partners need to coordinate; help to build a stronger evidence base at global, regional and national levels; and go beyond isolated interventions to support reforms that have the potential to make the whole system more inclusive. To do this, development partners need to share knowledge on their activities globally and at the country level. This paper, and the underlying mapping exercise, aims to facilitate knowledge sharing in the sector by analyzing thematic and geographic focus areas of major development partners supporting inclusive education. For example, the information on geographical focus can help partners understand current complementarities in coverage and whether there remain gaps in financial or technical support for particular countries or regions. On the flip side, in countries where several partners are funding disability-inclusive education, particular effort should be made to coordinate efforts around a coherent approach. The analysis can also help the sector understand thematic areas of convergence and gaps in support. For a select set of organizations known to be active in basic education for children with disabilities—the World Bank, UNICEF and the development agencies of the United Kingdom, United States, Norway and Finland—the paper maps each partner’s approach and describes the initiatives they have developed. Drawing on publicly available resources from the organizations’websites, analysis of project data submitted to the Int

FAQs

What problem does the paper address regarding inclusive education for children with disabilities?

It addresses that children with disabilities remain among the most excluded from education, and that international support for inclusive education is too low and patchy to transform education systems.

How does the paper map development partners’ work?

It analyzes thematic and geographic focus areas using publicly available resources, IATI project data, and a survey completed by staff from each organization.

What does the paper say about partners’ approach and gaps?

Partners promote a twin-track approach for system-level accessibility and inclusion, but their funded interventions often focus more on specialized support, indicating a need to strengthen mainstreaming across the education system.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Sophia Brooks