There is a question that any society serious about its future must ask: at what point does inclusion stop being a policy ambition and start being a structural feature of how a city actually works? Abu Dhabi has been working on that answer for the better part of a decade, and what we have learned has changed how we think about the problem itself.
The global picture remains one of persistent exclusion. According to the International Labour Organisation, people with disabilities participate in the global labour market at a rate 30 per cent lower than people without disabilities. Seven in ten worldwide remain economically inactive.
These are not statistics about a marginal population. The World Health Organisation estimates that approximately 1.3 billion people live with some form of disability. This is one of the largest and most consistently underestimated populations in the world.
In Abu Dhabi, we chose not to treat this as a welfare challenge but as a design opportunity. This is because when People of Determination participate fully and become independent, we all gain. A workplace that accommodates cognitive diversity becomes more innovative. A city built for wheelchair users works better for seniors, parents with strollers, and travellers alike. Inclusion is a collective upgrade.
In 2020, Abu Dhabi launched a comprehensive strategy for People of Determination. This was built around six pillars: social care; education; health and rehabilitation; universal accessibility; employment; and the enabling conditions that make all of the above possible. Fourteen government entities committed to 24 initiatives. The aim was not to create parallel systems for People of Determination but to fundamentally redesign the mainstream ones.
Five years on, the nature of the systems delivering them has changed. Inclusive education is now a standard that schools are expected to meet. Accessibility is no longer retrofitted after the fact – it is assessed, rated and required. Employment of People of Determination is a professional norm that government entities are trained and held accountable to uphold, not a footnote. The shift has been from accommodation to expectation, and that distinction matters enormously. Naturally, quality of life for People of Determination has increased since the strategy was put into action.
The most durable lesson from Abu Dhabi’s experience is that inclusion cannot sit within one department or programme. It must be embedded into the systems that shape everyday life, such as how we plan cities, design services, hire people, inspect schools and evaluate care. Lasting change comes when accessibility is not treated as an add-on, but as part of how institutions are expected to work.
The work ahead is as much cultural as it is structural. The most sophisticated accessibility standard is undermined if a hiring manager disregards it. The most thoughtfully designed school is diminished if a teacher lacks the instinct to include.
But there is another quieter, yet more serious, gap: well-meaning people who consider themselves inclusive may still dismiss an employee with an invisible disability, such as chronic pain, a learning difference, a mental health condition, simply because they cannot see the need. They may offer politeness instead of accommodation and unknowingly exclude. This is why awareness must include learning to recognise what we do not see.
Investment in awareness, across the workforce, across communities, and among People of Determination themselves as advocates and self-representatives, is at the core of this strategy.
Abu Dhabi's approach has always been grounded in a belief that the capacity of a society grows in proportion to how many of its people it chooses to fully engage. People of Determination are not a group to be accommodated at the margins of our economy and public life. They are contributors and participants whose inclusion makes every institution they touch more capable, more resilient and more human.
It is in that spirit that Abu Dhabi has established the Excellence Award for People of Determination Inclusion – Damj. This is the emirate's first excellence award for institutional inclusion, and the first award of its kind globally dedicated to recognising organisations that make inclusion a measurable practice. The award marks the point at which inclusion has become embedded enough in Abu Dhabi's institutional life to be held up as a standard and expected of others.
That transition, from aspiration to expectation, is perhaps the most meaningful measure of progress we have. Inclusion is not a cost of doing business. It is the architecture of a society that intends to last.
