The Inclusivity Study: Understanding Underlying Factors for Inclusivity and Identifying Strategic Programming Options

The tool uses the metaphor of an iceberg to demonstrate how there are often unseen, intangible things that, if ignored, can have a major effect. The Iceberg Model is widely used in different fields, including cultural studies and organizational assessments. The tool facilitates a learning process to understand inclusivity and exclusion in a specific context and the underlying factors that affect it. It creates a multidimensional understanding of factors driving inclusivity by looking at five layers, which are described below. The tool links the "visible" dimensions of inclusivity to its "invisible" underlying factors and provides a way to strategically address inclusivity in programming. The five layers of the Iceberg Model are: 1. Behaviors: These are visible and tangible, such as a community treating older persons with dignity. 2. Outcomes: These are visible and tangible, such as a program that mobilizes youth to take older persons outside, resulting in significantly more people enjoying the outdoors and having a chance to socialize with young people. 3. Structures: These can be both visible and invisible, such as a new network of retirement homes established in city centers, giving older people better access to shops and services. 4. Processes: These are the formal and non-formal rules and regulations that define how structures behave, such as policies defining how the state is dealing with the integration and care of older persons. 5. Attitudes, Norms, Beliefs, Culture, and Worldviews, Values, Identity: These are intangible factors that control behavior towards older persons, such as a belief that a younger person would stand up and offer their seat to an older person if none are available. The tool can be used as a stand-alone learning process, as an integral part of Inclusive Development Assessment (IDA) processes, or at the end of an IDA. It provides strategic information for program design during an assessment and helps users understand the dimensions of inclusivity an intervention has been addressing. The tool allows users to understand whether factors from other, especially deeper layers, need to be addressed to achieve greater impact. The Iceberg Tool can be integrated with IDA, which is described in the Additional Help to ADS 201: Suggested Approaches for Integrating Inclusive Development Across the Program Cycle and in Mission Operations. The layers of the iceberg help to define critical areas for collecting information, and the overall model allows for generating a systems view, seeing connections between different factors at different levels, and identifying which ones are critical to target for change. The tool can also be used as an additional step of an IDA that has been completed. Many IDAs are desk reviews combined with a set of Key Informant Interviews (i.e., stakeholder engagement). The Iceberg Tool allows users to review the findings from a systems perspective, providing additional insights, especially regarding the relevance of different factors and intervention options. If local participation has been low, it is an opportunity to bring local stakeholders together to validate the findings and ensure that local perspectives are incorporated.