Last week, I walked into a café in Charlotte, North Carolina, looking for my morning coffee. What appeared to be a charming coffee shop in a trendy neighborhood turned out to be a movement for inclusion disguised as a café. The employees at Bitty and Beau’s have Down syndrome—a genetic condition where people are born with an extra chromosome, which affects the way their brain and body develop.
This thematic brief provides essential information about persons with disabilities and guidance for incorporating an inclusive approach into development projects. It presents key definitions regarding disability status, including the different types of disabilities and the barriers that limit full participation. It also addresses fundamental concepts such as accessibility, reasonable accommodation, and universal design. The brief examines the main socioeconomic gaps affecting persons with disabilities, the relevant international legal framework, and the IDBs approach to this topic.
In recent decades, the evaluation of social programs has focused on measuring their impact, prioritizing effects on outcome indicators and, more recently, on intermediate indicators. This document presents rapid evaluations as complementary methods to impact evaluations, useful for improving the design and implementation of social programs. Rapid evaluations can help increase the effectiveness of interventions in a cost-effective way, through more participatory, flexible, and user- and beneficiary-centered approaches.
This thematic brief provides essential information about persons with disabilities and guidance for incorporating an inclusive approach into development projects. It presents key definitions regarding disability status, including the different types of disabilities and the barriers that limit full participation. It also addresses fundamental concepts such as accessibility, reasonable accommodation, and universal design. The brief examines the main socioeconomic gaps affecting persons with disabilities, the relevant international legal framework, and the IDBs approach to this topic.
Did you know that micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) play an essential role in economic development, job creation, and poverty reduction worldwide? On one hand, they make up 90% of all businesses, and on the other, they generate between 60% and 70% of employment and represent up to 50% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
For those outside the region, the initials “CXC” might sound like a secret code. But if you grew up in the Caribbean, chances are you’ve heard about it at least a thousand times—or taken one of its exams yourself. The Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC) is the main regional body responsible for academic and vocational assessments at the secondary and post-secondary levels.
This report presents findings from Fill the Nutrient Gap (FNG) analyses conducted in Guatemala and Peru, assessing how school meal programs can improve child nutrition and diet affordability. Using the WFPs FNG methodology and Enhance software, the analysis models the impact of served meals and take-home rations on the cost and nutritional adequacy of childrens diets. Results show that served school meals can reduce the cost of a nutrient-adequate diet by over 50% and offer greater dietary diversity and micronutrient content than take-home rations.
Scaling effective educational interventions remains a major policy challenge. Programs that succeed at a small scale often lose impact when expanded—a phenomenon researchers call the “voltage effect.” This is especially true for interventions that depend on intensive human interactions such as counseling, coaching or mentoring, where cost and availability of skilled personnel limit expansion.
What happens when a family receives concrete tools to support their child’s development from the earliest months of life? And what if that support comes right on time—just as the child begins to show signs of developmental delay?
Chelsea Simms lives in Punta Gorda, a fishing village on the southern Caribbean coast of Belize. She is 25 years old and has just given birth to her second child. The first was delivered by cesarean section. The second almost took her life.