Inclusive services: a cornerstone for inclusive cities

Inclusive services: a cornerstone for inclusive cities

As cities evolve, so too must the services that sustain them. From healthcare and education to transport and sanitation, urban services form the lifeblood of everyday life. While making the physical environment accessible in the city is critical, so is ensuring that all basic services are responsive to the needs of persons with disabilities to enable them to function independently (CRPD 2006). For instance, while a court may be completely accessible, unless specific steps are taken to make the proceedings accessible to persons with disabilities, it would not be inclusive. This may include having a sign language interpreter available if a deaf person seeks legislative services or the legal document in accessible formats. However, in reality, services remain fragmented, inaccessible, or out of reach for most persons with disabilities. This challenge is explored in the third webinar IncluCity series: Making Services Inclusive.

One key finding from the four-year inclusive cities research in six diverse cities was that making only the physical infrastructure accessible is not adequate; it was also necessary to ensure that the service offered in the space are receptive to the specific needs of persons with disabilities and provided the accommodations and support services required for their participation and inclusion.

 Stressing this issue, a participant from Kenya had this to say; 

“The cost of living is high, transport is high, even sometimes if you want guide, they want to charge you, even accessing recreational services are not accessible. Social media sites are not accessible and entertainment as well – in Kenya we don’t have audio movies. Most of the electronic accessories are not visually impaired friendly. Most of the home appliances are not accessible including the television.”

Accessibility and support services

Accessibility and support services complement each other to enable persons with disabilities to live and participate in their communities. While accessibility is related to transforming the environment to be universally useable by all persons with disabilities, support services focus on assisting an individual with disabilities in performing different activities. Accessibility of environment may increase or decrease the support required by an individual.

 In the webinar, we will highlight aspects of making mainstream basic service delivery inclusive by making disability specific requirements, such as information in accessible formats, sign language interpretation, and trained staff to enable people with disabilities to access the service with the same ease as others.  

We will also look at services required to plug gaps in the mainstream services and discuss disability-specific services to enable people with disabilities to participate in their communities equally. These may include creating community care hubs, providing door-to-door accessible transport, and legal aid services specifically for disability rights.

Why Focus on Services?

Explaining the importance of this topic, a participant from Ulaanbaatar Mongolia said;

 “People with disabilities have a lack of accessibility to get services and information, and they need to get where they want to go, they need to get services, and if they can't go there they should have access to get the information in a way that suits them, but they can’t, and that needs to be improved”

What this quote highlights is that access to services available in the community is critical for persons with disabilities to live and participate in their community. Despite this according to the UN’s Disability and Development Report (2018), in LMICs: 75% of persons with disabilities report facing barriers in at least one key service area (health, education, housing, transport, employment). These inaccessible or poorly designed services can lead to deepening exclusion and inequality. While infrastructure and policy are important, how services are operated, maintained, and experienced by residents is just as crucial.

The Global Action Report, based on research undertaken in six cities, shows that service delivery is often the tipping point between theoretical accessibility and lived inclusion. Whether it’s a health clinic without an interpreter, a school without teacher training in inclusive education, or a bus that doesn’t stop for wheelchair users, how we run our services determines who gets to participate in city life.

Summarising some gaps identified by the People with disabilities highlighted in the six research cities in the Availability, Accessibility, Adaptability and Quality of basic services include:

• Poor availability of services: Disability-related services, such as sign language interpreters, maintenance services for assistive technology, provision of public information in accessible formats, and home modification services, were not always available. There was a lack of good practice models encouraging service providers to provide these. Often, there was a lack of awareness and limited training courses to develop such service providers. Where services were available, they were often not affordable for the users.
• Inaccessibility of services: At times, even if the service was available, it was provided in inaccessible spaces, making it unusable. Further, getting to the service from their homes was challenging because of the first and last-mile connectivity and inaccessible public transport. Apart from the inaccessible environments, people with disabilities also expressed gaps in the affordability of services as a reason for denying them access. The affordability could be seen as an outcome of support services seen as being specialist services not available in a more universal method, increasing their demand.
• Acceptability of services was often hindered as basic services were often not designed to be disability friendly. Further, people with disabilities often cannot access services because of the stigma and the negative attitudes of people.
• The quality of services was often lacking, especially for disability-specific services, for which demand was limited. No service standards were available, and often, services were available addressing certain impairments but not all.

A good practice example from Medellin, Colombia 

Some of the recommendations that emerged from the research included:

• Embedding a user-centric approach in all stages of service provision, from procuring the service provider to designing and operating a service. People with disabilities should be involved in the planning, delivering, and monitoring services.
• Accessibility of services is to be mandated by law, and strict compliance monitoring will be used to implement it on the ground. This is applicable to both services provided in a physical space and provided on a digital platform. Reasonable accommodation may be provided to improve access for individuals with disabilities.
• Training all frontline and operations staff in disability awareness, inclusive language, and accessible customer service.
• Adjusting pricing structures to minimise the disability related extra costs incurred by persons with disabilities by offering subsidies or free access for personal assistants or assistance dogs, and an accessible transport service. The government offering tax incentives for employers and service providers who make inclusive changes.
• Specialist services to address disability-specific services where needed to meet the specific needs of people with disabilities, such as home modifications, inclusive employment units, door-to-door accessible transport, AT services (including provision, maintenance, and training), and community care centres.

Join Us

Join us for the third Inclucity webinar 'InclucITY: Making Services Inclusive' to dive deeper into how cities can transform their service provision. Whether you’re a policymaker, planner, service provider, or advocate, this session will share practical strategies for creating services that empower all.

[Register for the webinar]

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Let’s work together to build cities where services aren’t just delivered - they’re inclusive, seamless, and life-changing.