This book contributes to the discourse on disability in Africa as an issue of systemic exclusion characterized by the discrimination and often complete segregation of persons with disabilities (PWDs) in various African countries. Despite the inclusive promise of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) as well as the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in Africa, the situation has not actually improved for PWDs in Africa. Given the powerful evidence of the devaluation of PWDs in connection with the COVID-19 pandemic, it is high time to reflect on the experiences of persons with disabilities in education, along with other forms of discrimination they encounter. The book’s respective chapters assess how well the existing legal frameworks, policies and practices in most African countries have met the needs for inclusion of children and adults with disabilities.
The social and economic rights of persons with disabilities are protected in the constitutions of most countries and enshrined in the normative frameworks that most African leaders have adopted and ratified. These commitments need to be borne in mind when thinking about the present and the future. Inclusive development is an investment and must be viewed as part of a package of reforms that are connected to substantive social protection and improvements in realizing other socio-economic goods. Indeed, a range of alliances are needed to advance the goals of ‘leaving no one behind’, ensuring ‘education for all’, and delivering on the African Union’s call for the development of policies, programmes and requisite budgets for the realization of inclusive education for persons with disabilities.