Conclusions and next steps

There is still a long way to go for civil society around both disability leadership and disability inclusion in general. The lack of quantitative data available shows that we need more data, research and discussion if we are going to help civil society live up to its values and benefit from the expertise of disabled people.

The actions for civil society in this report aim to providing the foundations for the sector to grow and become more inclusive, but also providing the skills and information to truly hold the sector to account for the gap between its values and its practice.

At the outset of this project COVID-19 was a virtually unknown term. We have seen during the progression of this project that the impact of the pandemic on civil society is going to be shaping things for a long time to come. However, the inability to carry on business as normal is an opportunity to build back better, in a way that supports and learns from disabled people’s leadership. Civil society organisations have an opportunity to be at the forefront of this effort.