By Samson Ademola
On Saturday, 15 November 2025, I was speaking about why none of us should allow our background to limit us. To show how unequal the world can be, I said: we are still pushing for women to be given space to lead across sectors.
But I wanted the room to see the fuller picture. So, I asked them to imagine more.
Imagine that someone is female and has a disability.
Imagine that someone has a disability and belongs to a minority group.
Imagine that someone is orphaned, vulnerable, and living in a remote community far from opportunity.
Each of these identities carries its own weight. But when they overlap, they form layers of disadvantage that determine how people are included or excluded. They create unequal power relations.
This is the heart of intersectionality in development: understanding that people’s realities are shaped by more than one identity at a time, and that real change must speak to those intersections.
Knowing the problem is not enough. Project teams cannot just accommodate inequalities. We must take deliberate steps to level the playing field.
How can your team move from awareness to action? Here is a practical guide:
1️⃣ Start with your team.
People bring their experiences into the decisions they make. A team that reflects different genders, abilities, ethnicities, ages, and geographies is better positioned to identify blind spots. And this diversity must exist in leadership, not only in junior or support roles.
2️⃣ Budget for inclusion.
More organisations now ask candidates about disabilities or special needs before interviews. This is progress. Sign-language interpreters, guides, accessible venues, nannies, transport, or assistive technology cost money. If inclusion is important to your work and team, it must appear in the budget.
3️⃣ Design activities and products with diverse perspectives in mind.
Activities and products should accommodate the perspectives of diverse groups. This is the reason we create knowledge products in accessible formats like multimedia, with alternative texts. Inclusion starts with how we create, not after the fact.
4️⃣ Collect disaggregated data.
Gender, age, disability, ethnicity, location—these details are not “too long”. They are evidence. Without them, you will never notice that your panel was all men, your project participants were from only one ethnic group, or your training room had no one under 30.
This is how we move from awareness to action. This is how we ensure that diverse voices, particularly those from disadvantaged groups, are heard and actively shape the work we do.
💡 Be honest: Have you checked your last event’s attendance data by gender, disability and location? What did it reveal? Did anything surprise you?