Value for money and disability inclusion: beware of false choices

The sector is reeling from significant cuts to the UK’s Official Development Assistance (ODA) – around 40% from already diminished levels.

By their own equality impact assessment on the first tranche (2025-26), the UK Government cuts will negatively affect those already marginalised, particularly people with disabilities, of whom around 80% (approximately 1 billion) live in low- and middle-income countries.

In this context, ensuring value for money is rightly a priority. Every pound spent must deliver maximum impact for both UK taxpayers and global partners. Too often, however, value for money and disability inclusion are seen as being at odds. This is a false dichotomy. In fact, inclusive development delivers long-term and sustainable value for all stakeholders – both donors and those being supported.

The commonly used value-for-money framework – the five Es (economy, efficiency, effectiveness, equity, and cost-effectiveness) – provides a compelling lens through which to demonstrate that disability inclusion enhances, not undermines, value for money.

1. Economy

Maximising resources often starts with shifting power to local organisations of persons with disabilities (OPDs), putting them in the driver’s seat. For instance, in Guyana, the International Foundation for Electoral Systems partnered with the Guyana Council of Organizations for Persons with Disabilities (GCOPD). As a local OPD, GCOPD needed fewer external resources to mobilise local communities. Ahead of the 2023 local elections, the organisation reached remote areas to deliver voter education for less than £1.48 per person – proving that inclusive approaches can be economical and produce excellent value for money.

2. Efficiency

Disability inclusion can drive efficiency by tapping into the local knowledge and lived experience of people with disabilities, OPDs and their allies. Deaf Child Worldwide, working with grassroots groups in India, addressed gaps in deaf awareness and screening by training the parents of deaf children to conduct deaf awareness sessions for communities and pre-school teachers. Through their advocacy, these parents increased hearing screening referrals by 17%. This led to the creation of an early identification clinic, proving that local solutions create efficient, lasting change.

3. Effectiveness

A programme that excludes one in six people cannot be described as effective. Effective programming is inclusive by design, not by exception. It improves outcomes for all in work, education, governance and healthcare, and reduces negative stereotyping, stigma and discrimination. Adjusting financial systems to capture spending on inclusive budgeting – for example, by including and tracking a budget line on reasonable accommodation – can help analyse costs over time and understand if value for money is being delivered.

Experience from UK aid’s disability inclusion programme Inclusive Futures – led by Sightsavers and the International Disability Alliance with a large consortium of other organisations – shows that budgeting for disability inclusion can be achieved with flexibility, partnerships and awareness of available government schemes. To date, Inclusive Futures has helped secure £9.3 million in local government commitments to disability-inclusive programming.

4. Equity

Equity is often overlooked in value for money assessments, but it is critical. Development that does not prioritise those historically ‘left behind’ is inherently flawed, as inclusive ODA benefits all people, not just people with disabilities. Infrastructure built with universal design – schools, hospitals, transport, polling stations – becomes more accessible for children, older people and those with temporary disabilities, providing better outcomes for whole communities.

Learnings from the UK Aid funded Supporting Adolescent Girls’ Education project in Zimbabwe, of which CBM UK (Global Disability Inclusion) is a consortium partner, show how inclusive, multidimensional interventions are essential for tackling the barriers that keep the most marginalised children out of school and to ensure transition into employment and productive livelihoods. With reduced aid, equity becomes even more important; unless inclusive approaches are used by all development programmes, the most excluded will fall further behind.

5. Cost-effectiveness

Long-term cost-effectiveness requires disability inclusion. Excluding people with disabilities perpetuates poverty and places a heavier financial burden on families and public systems – deepening inequality and proving more costly to the wider economy in the long term. A study in Bangladesh found that excluding children with disabilities from education costs the government $26 million per year due to reduced earning potential.

As one witness told the International Development Committee during its inquiry on disability and development: “One community leader, completely spontaneously, said to me, ‘It has made a huge difference. Now that disabled people are benefiting our community, the whole community has come out of poverty. …Before, they were dependent; they were drawing [on] our resources. Now they are productive, it means the whole community has a better potential.’”

It is true that when people with disabilities are included in economic life, they become contributors to – not just recipients of – development. However, value for money through disability inclusion can be achieved with or without a focus on increasing the productivity of people with disabilities.

The five Es show that disability inclusion is not a trade-off, but a multiplier. It strengthens development outcomes, meets international obligations and ensures that UK aid truly leaves no one behind.

That’s why the Bond Disability and Development Group urges the International Development Committee to elevate equity and ensure inclusive approaches are central to its recommendations on the FCDO’s approach to value for money, particularly in light of the July 2025 equality impact assessment. True value for money is inclusive, equitable and future-proof.