Inclusive Futures Podcast

We invited four young disability advocates to discuss their hopes for the Global Disability Summit, which took place in Berlin in April 2025. Hear some of the highlights from the conversation between host Alan Herbert, and panellists Caterina Nyambura, Josephine Mwende, and Sharon Odongo during this special podcast episode, recorded in Nairobi, Kenya.

Financial inclusion has been identified as an enabler for seven of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals and the World Bank Group considers it a key enabler to reducing poverty and boosting prosperity. Despite progress in recent years, people with disabilities still face multiple barriers in accessing financial services and products.

In this 23-minute conversation, Paul Horsters from GIZ’s Global Project on the Inclusion of Persons with Disabilities speaks with Mary Asare and Ana de la Vega Núñez from GIZ and Sheru Muuo from Sightsavers about research they carried out in Ghana, Mexico and Kenya. They discuss why women with disabilities are often more financially excluded and how this can be improved.

Sheru also explains how, with funding from GIZ, Sightsavers is piloting a new loan product with a reduced interest rate and a longer repayment period, to support women retailers with disabilities in western Kenya to grow their businesses in the Global Labor Program – Inclusive Futures.

Many small businesses in Kenya have been adversely impacted or even been forced to shut down due to the effects of COVID-19, including businesses run and owned by people with disabilities.

In this 11-minutes audio report, Inclusive Futures citizen reporter Alan Herbert speaks with Henry Thuo, an entrepreneur with a disability and the founder of Hemuth fabrications.

Listen to this audio report to hear about how COVID-19 almost wiped out Henry’s business and how the assistance he received from Light for the World’s InBusiness initiative gave his business a lifeline during the pandemic.

Farmers with disabilities are growing the vital ingredient for beer as part of an innovative project in western Kenya.

In this 11 minute episode, our global reporter Kimberly Middleton explores how one farmer has spent days chasing birds, and challenging negative stereotypes of disability, to supply sorghum to East African Breweries Limited.

Kimberly also talks to the brewery about their pledge to be inclusive of people with disabilities, and to national representative body United Disabled Persons of Kenya about why projects like this one are essential.

In this episode, three disability experts who have been seconded to the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) to promote inclusion share their views and experiences.

Shikuku Obosi, Susie Rodgers and Tom Palmer discuss what more needs to be done to ensure people with disabilities are not left behind, as well as the impact of both COVID-19 and the merger of Department for International Development (DFID) and Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) on disability inclusion.

In this 26-minute conversation, medal-winning Paralympian Susie shares her concerns that working from home will further segregate people with disabilities from society, Shikuku outlines why disability discrimination is the “mother of all human rights violations”, and Tom explains that humanitarian organisations must respect people with disabilities in crisis responses, both as recipients and leaders.