By the TAGDev 2.0 Team
Mohammed VI Polytechnic University (UM6P), Morocco
In partnership with RUFORUM and the Mastercard Foundation
Contact: abderrahmane.haddad@um6p.ma

Introduction

Inclusion has become a central concern of development policy, yet for persons with disabilities it too often remains an aspiration rather than a practice. Across Africa, persons with disabilities are among the most systematically excluded from education and from the labour market, encountering barriers that are at once physical, institutional and attitudinal. The consequences are considerable, both for the individuals concerned, whose talents remain unrealised, and for economies that forgo their contribution. In the agricultural sector, which retains enormous importance for employment and food security across the continent, the exclusion of persons with disabilities represents a loss that development strategies can no longer afford to overlook. If the ambition of leaving no one behind, expressed in both the Sustainable Development Goals and the African Union’s Agenda 2063, is to be more than rhetoric, it must be translated into concrete institutional practice.

Higher-education institutions bear a particular responsibility in this respect, because they shape both the skills of graduates and the norms of the professional world those graduates will enter. A university that treats disability inclusion as a deliberate object of institutional design can influence not only the trajectories of individual students but the expectations of employers, associations and public agencies within its ecosystem. It is against this background that Mohammed VI Polytechnic University (UM6P), within the TAGDev 2.0 programme coordinated by RUFORUM and funded by the Mastercard Foundation, has developed a Disability Inclusion Convergence Strategy. This article examines that strategy, considers why its design is significant, and reflects on its implications for inclusive higher education and for the wider question of displaced and vulnerable learners.

Institutional Context and the Gap Identified

The strategy did not emerge in the abstract. It was formulated in direct response to a gap identified within the Disability Inclusion Component of the TAGDev 2.0 programme during a monitoring meeting held on 26 June 2026. Rather than treating this delay as a reason for a further study or diagnostic assessment, UM6P chose to respond with a practical, time-bound programme of field action, to be delivered between May and December 2026 and piloted in the Marrakech region. This decision is itself instructive. It reflects a judgement that inclusion is advanced less by the accumulation of analysis than by structured engagement with the institutions, associations and employers that shape opportunity on the ground. Marrakech was selected as the pilot region because of its proximity to UM6P campuses and its concentration of associations and businesses already engaged in inclusion, allowing the strategy to build on existing capacity rather than beginning from nothing.

In May 2026, the university submitted four concept notes to RUFORUM setting out the strategy in operational detail. The coherence of these notes is significant: rather than proposing isolated activities, they describe a sequenced pathway in which each phase generates the conditions for the next, moving from the identification of partners, through awareness-raising and training, to job matching and professional integration. This architecture reflects an understanding that the exclusion of persons with disabilities is not a single problem to be solved by a single intervention, but a cumulative disadvantage that must be addressed at several points simultaneously.

A Field-First, Sequenced Strategy

The first phase concerns identification and mapping. An in-person networking event, scheduled for 14 September 2026, brings together companies and disability-focused associations, and includes a presentation by RUFORUM on best practices for the professional integration of persons with disabilities. The phase aims to mobilise thirteen partners — among them the national employment agency ANAPEC, the employers’ confederation CGEM, the Moroccan Association of Persons with Disabilities (AMH) and the Mohammed V Foundation for Solidarity — and to produce a stakeholder map and a database of inclusive recruiters for the region. The significance of beginning with partnership is considerable, because durable inclusion depends on a network of committed actors rather than on the efforts of a single institution; by mapping and convening these actors at the outset, the strategy establishes the relationships on which all subsequent phases depend.

The second phase turns to awareness-raising among young persons with disabilities themselves. An employability tour across five disability associations in Marrakech is designed to reach one hundred young people during October 2026. A notable feature of this phase is that each session is co-facilitated by a paid trainer who is themselves a person with a disability, a design choice that establishes peer credibility and challenges the assumption that persons with disabilities are recipients of support rather than agents within it. The sessions also identify each participant’s profile, existing skills and skills gaps, generating the information required to calibrate the training that follows. In this way, awareness-raising is not treated as a generic exercise but as a diagnostic process that grounds subsequent activities in the actual capabilities and aspirations of the beneficiaries.

The third phase provides training and workplace immersion. Eighty young persons with disabilities, sixteen from each of the five associations, follow a six-day pathway during October and November 2026, covering soft skills, the exploration of employment opportunities, curriculum-vitae and interview preparation, the use of artificial intelligence in job search, and entrepreneurship, before undertaking a one-day workplace immersion with host companies including Intelcia, Label’Vie and members of CGEM Marrakech. The sessions are deliberately structured in half-days, adapted to considerations of participant fatigue, a detail that signals a serious attention to accessibility rather than a nominal commitment to it. The inclusion of artificial intelligence and entrepreneurship in the curriculum is equally significant, since it positions persons with disabilities not at the margins of the modern economy but as participants in its most dynamic segments.

The fourth and final phase addresses job matching and professional integration. A culminating event in December 2026, gathering some one hundred and twenty participants, hosts speed interviews between young persons with disabilities and recruiters, provides an exhibition and sales space for young entrepreneurs with disabilities, and convenes a conference featuring testimonies from employers and employees with disabilities, entrepreneurial pitches, and a closing ceremony at which certificates and handcrafted trophies are awarded. The stated targets include approximately eighty interviews and at least ten internship offers. The importance of this phase lies in its insistence on measurable outcomes: by translating training into interviews, internships and entrepreneurial opportunities, it converts capability into concrete access to the labour market, which is ultimately the test of any inclusion strategy.

Partnerships, Measurement and Sustainability

Two features of the strategy deserve particular emphasis. The first is its consistent reliance on partnership. At every phase, the strategy mobilises a combination of institutional, associative and private-sector actors — public employment services, employers, disability associations and a national solidarity foundation — rather than positioning the university as a solitary provider. This approach anchors inclusion within the local ecosystem and increases the likelihood that its effects will persist beyond the life of the programme, since the relationships and the inclusive-recruiter networks it establishes can continue to function independently. The second is its orientation towards measurement. The four activities are accompanied by explicit indicators and deliverables, and they represent a combined budget of approximately 119,300 Moroccan dirhams, which has been submitted to RUFORUM for validation. This transparency about cost and expected results reflects a discipline that is essential if inclusion is to be taken seriously as a component of programme delivery rather than as an optional supplement.

Refugees and Displaced Learners: Current Position and Future Possibilities

A complete account of UM6P’s inclusion agenda requires candour about its current boundaries. With regard to refugees and displaced learners from conflict-affected countries, the university does not at present operate a dedicated programme. Its inclusion efforts to date have concentrated on students facing financial hardship and, increasingly, on persons with disabilities through the strategy described above. This is stated plainly because credibility in matters of inclusion depends on an accurate description of what an institution does and does not yet do. At the same time, the capabilities that UM6P has developed — in agricultural education, in incubation and in applied research — are of evident relevance to the situation of displaced populations, for whom access to education and to livelihoods is frequently interrupted. The university therefore regards collaboration with RUFORUM member institutions as a constructive avenue through which these capabilities might, in future, be extended to refugee and displaced communities, and it welcomes engagement on how such an extension could be designed.

Lessons Learned and Recommendations

1. Favour sequenced field action over repeated diagnosis. The decision to respond to an identified gap with structured engagement rather than a further study offers a replicable model for translating inclusion commitments into practice.
2. Anchor inclusion in multi-actor partnerships. Durable inclusion depends on networks of employers, associations and public agencies, and beginning with the mapping and convening of these actors strengthens the sustainability of subsequent phases.
3. Position persons with disabilities as agents, not only beneficiaries. The use of trainers who are themselves persons with disabilities establishes peer credibility and should be adopted as a deliberate design principle.
4. Attend seriously to accessibility in programme design. Details such as half-day sessions adapted to participant needs signal a genuine rather than nominal commitment and materially affect participation.
5. Include high-value skills in inclusive training. Incorporating artificial intelligence and entrepreneurship positions persons with disabilities within the dynamic segments of the economy rather than at its margins.
6. Insist on measurable integration outcomes. Targets expressed as interviews, internships and enterprise opportunities ensure that inclusion is assessed by access to the labour market, not by activity alone.
7. Be candid about current limits and open to collaboration. An honest account of where a programme does not yet operate, as in the case of displaced learners, preserves credibility and creates a basis for future partnership.

Conclusion

The Disability Inclusion Convergence Strategy developed by UM6P under TAGDev 2.0 offers a considered example of how a university can move the inclusion of persons with disabilities from principle to practice. Its sequenced design, its consistent reliance on partnership, its attention to accessibility and its insistence on measurable outcomes together describe a model that is both practical and replicable within the RUFORUM network and beyond. The strategy remains at an early stage, and its full significance will depend on the outcomes it produces and on the durability of the partnerships it establishes; its honest acknowledgement of the boundaries of the university’s current work, including with respect to displaced learners, is part of that seriousness. Yet its direction is clear and its relevance considerable. By treating the professional integration of persons with disabilities as a deliberate institutional responsibility, UM6P contributes to a vision of agricultural higher education in which inclusion is not an afterthought but a measure of the system’s integrity, and in which the ambition of leaving no one behind is pursued through concrete and accountable action.