Education and social inclusion of people with disabilities in five countries in West Africa: a literature review

An estimated 1 billion people worldwide live with some form of disability. With the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals and the “Leave no one behind” agenda, there is a global momentum to ensure that disadvantaged groups, not least people with disabilities, are included and accounted for, in mainstream development efforts. However, in many low-income settings little is known about disability and the policies and programmes in place to improve the lives of those affected.

This literature review describes the extent and quality of published and unpublished literature on education and social inclusion of people with disabilities in five West African countries: Cameroon, Liberia, Mali, Sierra Leone and Senegal. Results: Fifty-four unique documents met inclusion criteria of the review; the majority of documents were from Sierra Leone. Primary research included mainly qualitative studies and cross-sectional surveys.