Financing disability inclusion
About
Despite growing policy commitments made by national governments towards disability inclusion, putting these into action requires adequate and sustainable financing. Many low- and middle-income countries dedicate only a tiny fraction of their national budgets to disability, and these funds are often allocated in a way that does not support inclusion. Meanwhile, the share of international development cooperation which targets disability inclusion objectives remains low.
An increasing number of countries are, however, showing how adequate and sustainable financing can be progressively secured to support disability inclusion. Several low- and middle-income countries have reached or surpassed public expenditure of around 0.1 per cent of GDP, a level which allows the achievement of basic disability related interventions in health, education and social protection. Others have put in place investments closer to 0.5 per cent of GDP, which has supported the implementation of more comprehensive social protection for persons with disabilities.
UNICEF works across the national budget cycle to support government and other actors to achieve better financing for disability inclusion. This includes budget analysis which seeks to understand the scale, effectiveness and equity of existing expenditures, and development of costed plans for accelerating disability inclusion. It also involves ensuring that persons with disabilities are actively involved in the process of developing national budgets.
Budgeting for disability inclusion
UNICEF has produced various resources to support budgeting from a disability inclusion perspective:
- Disability Inclusive Budgeting from a Child Rights Perspective: Pathways of Change for UNICEF and Partners UNICEF ESARO (2024) - This technical note provides practical guidance on engaging on disability inclusion within public finance, including unpacking the meaning of disability inclusive budgeting through a child rights lens.
- Europe and Central Asia regional guidelines on CRPD-compliant budget analysis UNICEF ECARO (2025) These guidelines were designed to support UNICEF teams in the Europe and Central Asia region to undertake analysis examining government budget allocation and expenditure with respect to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD).
- Estudio de mejores prácticas internacionales de seguimiento presupuestal transversal (clasificadores) y la aplicación al caso del presupuesto para las personas con discapacidad en Perú (Spanish) UNICEF (2023) The study reviews international best practices in cross-cutting budget monitoring in relation to disability and applies this to the case of the national budget in Peru.
Several countries have undertaken analysis of the extent to which national budgets address disability inclusion. These include:
- Angola (budget brief 2025 – and summary in English)
- Malawi (budget briefs for 2022/23, 2024/2025 and 2025/26)
- Namibia (budget brief 2023/24)
- Zambia (budget briefs for 2023, 2024 and 2025) and an overarching analysis conducted for the Global Disability Inclusion Report
- Peru multi-year budget analysis for the Global Disability Inclusion Report
- Thailand multi-year budget analysis for the Global Disability Inclusion Report
Global Disability Inclusion Report
UNICEF was a partner in the development of the Global Disability Inclusion Report, a landmark publication that was launched at the Global Disability Summit in Berlin in April 2025. This involved the development of a set of background papers focused on financing of disability inclusion in low- and middle-income countries.
This included two thematic background papers:
- Financing acceleration of disability inclusion in low- and middle-income countries – This paper sets out the principles for public finance for CRPD implementation, reviews the current situation in terms of public finance for disability inclusion and sets out some estimates of the financing gap to accelerate disability inclusion. It then describes strategic approaches to maximise the use of available resources at a national level.
- Disability-specific mechanisms for financing inclusion of persons with disabilities: A global overview – Some countries have put in place specific mechanisms to finance disability inclusion, such as disability funds or earmarked financing. This paper provides a review of existing experiences of these mechanisms.
It also included a set of country-focused background papers providing more detail on the composition of disability-related expenditure and the assessment of the cost of selected interventions:
