Embracing diversity, equity and inclusion: A must for every organisation in today’s world

Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) are three intertwined values that every organisation today must embrace. Various studies confirm that companies that are diverse, equitable and inclusive are more creative, better able to respond to challenges, attract and retain talent, and tend to financially outperform their competition.

As we start the holy month Ramadan, a time for spiritual reflection and helping those in need, now is a good time to re-evaluate and re-state the importance of accessibility too, by adding an A to DEI.

Most of us would agree that accessibility is a fundamental human right. Sadly, many people with disabilities can’t access critical information and communication channels. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), there are 50 million people, or roughly 15% of the population, with some form of disability in the Middle East.

This group faces a daily challenge in accessing essential services, with the lack of accessible content a significant barrier, hindering social, economic, cultural and societal participation. Developing accessible content is not only a moral imperative, but it also makes good economic sense for brands. This audience is a potentially huge untapped customer pool, estimated to have a buying power of $13 trillion globally.

Take the visually impaired for example. The International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness estimates there are 43 million people living with blindness, and 295 million people living with moderate-to-severe visual impairment. How do they access the printed materials or online content your organization develops?

For the 1.5 billion people living with hearing loss today (estimated by the WHO to reach 2.5 billion by 2050), without the addition of subtitles or closed captions, how can they easily engage with the vast amount of audio and video content produced each and every day?

This lack of accessibility not only affects people with disabilities, but also impacts their families and the wider community.

To address this gap it’s crucial that we all come together to create accessible content that caters to the diverse needs of people living with visual, hearing, cognitive and speech impairments in the Middle East.

Bear in mind too that cognitive disabilities include forms of neurodivergence such as dyslexia, ADHD and autism.

The good news is that there are some straightforward things brands, agencies and government departments can do to develop more accessible content:

• Conduct accessibility audits to identify any accessibility barriers before creating any new content. These audits can help identify issues such as poor color contrast, missing alt tags on images, a lack of captions on videos and hyperlinks that aren’t meaningful.
• Embed accessible design and development practices into content creation processes. These might include using semantic HTML, organising documents with clear headings or simply using more concise language.
• Test content using a range of assistive technologies, such as screen readers, speech recognition software, and keyboard-only navigation to identify any barriers to accessibility that may not have been identified during the accessibility audit.
• Provide accessible alternatives for all types of content, for example transcripts for videos, text-only versions of websites or replacing PDFs with more accessible Word formats.
• Educate your team and bring in experts to help you run learning sessions with your content creation team to share easy solutions and establish new ways of working to make your content fully accessible to all.

The elevated focus on DEI has brought significant progress towards creating a more diverse and equitable society, but we must not forget people with disabilities and impairments. And as the global population ages, that applies to more of us than ever before.

Accessibility and inclusion for people with disabilities should be at the forefront of all efforts towards building a more equitable world. Excluding people with disabilities from the conversation on inclusion not only harms them, but it also limits the potential of society as a whole. We must work harder to create a world that is truly accessible for all: now there’s an Idea.

Inclusion fosters and supports diversity, which creates greater equity, enabled through accessibility.

Peter Jacob is the managing director – MENAT at Current Global

Read: Explainer: How companies in Middle East approach diversity, equality and inclusion?