The Curb-Cut Effect: Build for the Few, Help the Many

It’s easy to frame disability issues as matters of social justice or charity – helping a minority in need. But there is another powerful frame: disability drives innovation that benefits everyone. A phenomenon known as the “curb-cut effect” shows how solutions originally designed for marginalised people (for example, people with disabilities, people of colour, etc.) often end up making life better for the general public. The term comes from the sloped ramps carved into pavements at crosswalks. These curb cuts were first created to allow wheelchair users to roll onto and off sidewalks. Once installed, however, they proved a boon to parents pushing prams, travellers wheeling luggage, cyclists, delivery workers with carts – virtually everyone appreciated the convenience of not stepping off a high kerb. What began as an accessibility fix became an urban design standard around the world. Today, we hardly notice curb cuts, yet we all use them. This is the curb-cut effect in action.

Many everyday technologies have similar origin stories. The first modern typewriter was invented in the early 19th century by an Italian count who wanted to help his blind friend write letters on her own. Out of that assistive device grew the keyboards that now sit on every laptop and smartphone. Audiobooks? They started in the 1930s as recordings of books on vinyl records for blind readers. Decades later, audiobooks are a multi-billion dollar industry enjoyed by commuters, multitaskers, and book-lovers of all kinds – not just people with visual impairments. The electric toothbrush was originally marketed in the 1950s to help people with limited arm mobility or strength, who struggled with manual brushing. It turned out that electric brushes clean so effectively that dentists now recommend them for everyone, and millions of households use them for superior dental care. Even the smartphone voice assistants and speech-to-text features owe a debt to disability innovation – voice recognition was a game-changer for users who were blind or had mobility impairments, allowing them to operate computers with speech. Now, technologies like Siri or Alexa (and dictation software) have gone fully mainstream, used by busy people with their hands full, or anyone preferring a hands-free interface. These examples underscore a clear point: designing for accessibility sparks creativity. When we build tools or environments for people who move, see, hear or process information differently, we often discover solutions that benefit all users.

This “curb-cut effect” is as relevant on the streets of Yaoundé or Bamenda as it is in Berlin or Munich. In Cameroon, few curb cuts exist yet – but imagine if they were widespread. Not only would wheelchair users gain freedom, but so would an elderly person with a cane, a pregnant woman with limited mobility, or a market trader pushing a heavy cart. A ramp into a post office helps the customer in a wheelchair, yes – but it also helps the customer with a stroller or the delivery person with packages. Accessibility is infectious in a good way: once introduced, everyone wants to use it. This is why accessibility should be seen not as a costly obligation but as an investment. Societies that embrace universal design (designing products and spaces to be usable by all people, to the greatest extent possible) reap broad benefits. For instance, adding captions to TV programs obviously enables deaf viewers to follow along. Unexpectedly, however, a huge number of hearing viewers use captions too – in noisy gyms, bars, or airports, or to help understand foreign accents and dialogue. In fact, many younger people now prefer to watch videos with subtitles by default. What was an accommodation for the deaf has become a common feature appreciated by millions.

Germany has been a leader in some aspects of accessible tech and design. The country has standards requiring websites and digital services to be accessible (following its BITV ordinance and the EU’s Accessibility Act). This not only helps disabled users navigate the internet, but also improves overall user experience – clear layouts, captioned videos, and keyboard navigation options benefit people with slow connections or those who prefer reading text over audio. In Cameroon, where digital infrastructure is still developing, adopting such inclusive design principles could help more people get online. A well-captioned educational video, for example, could be understood by students even in areas with patchy audio quality or by those who speak different mother tongues (since they can read along). The curb cut mindset encourages innovation in areas like transportation as well. Germany’s experiments with talking buses or tactile station maps might seem like luxuries, but if Cameroon adopts similar ideas, it could dramatically improve public transit usability for all riders. The lessons of the curb-cut effect are clear: when you “design for the margins,” you often create something excellent for the center. Accessibility is not about a few people in wheelchairs; it’s about building a society where everyone, at some point in life, benefits – whether due to disability, age, injury, or just circumstance.

Breaking Barriers: Toward a More Inclusive Future

Both Cameroon and Germany face the challenge of breaking remaining barriers – physical, social, and attitudinal – to achieve true inclusion. The paths they must take differ in specifics but converge in principle. Fundamentally, disabled people must be seen and treated as equal citizens, not objects of pity or charity. How can each country move forward, and what best practices can they share?

For Cameroon, the priorities are basic but vital. First, awareness and attitude change are paramount. The persistence of beliefs that disability equals witchcraft or punishment must be tackled through public education and sensitisation campaigns. Community and religious leaders can help by spreading messages that demystify disabilities – for example, explaining that conditions like polio or cerebral palsy have medical causes and that disabled children can learn and achieve if given support. Schools could include lessons about famous people with disabilities and emphasise empathy and respect. The media, too, has a role: portraying persons with disabilities not as helpless victims or objects of ridicule, but as ordinary people with talents and rights. As one Cameroonian activist succinctly put it, “the problem is the attitude”, and changing attitudes will open many doors.

Second, Cameroon needs to enforce and fund its disability laws. It is not enough to have a 2010 protection law on paper; the government must allocate a budget to implement it. This means building ramps, installing accessible toilets in public buildings, training teachers in inclusive education, and providing assistive devices. A good start would be to mandate that all new public buildings – schools, hospitals, council offices – meet accessibility standards (with ramps, handrails, non-slip surfaces, signage, etc.). For existing structures, a gradual retrofit plan should be developed, focusing on high-priority sites like universities, transport hubs, and government offices. The cost of these modifications is relatively small in the scope of infrastructure spending, especially if incorporated from the start. Cameroon could seek technical assistance and funding from international partners; notably, Germany itself has committed to disability-inclusive development aid. German-supported projects in Cameroon (whether building roads or schools) could model best practices by including accessibility from the design phase. This kind of cooperation can transfer knowledge and also signal that inclusion is a global expectation.

Third, empowering organisations of persons with disabilities (OPDs) in Cameroon is key. These local groups know the on-the-ground issues best. They can advise on policies, help identify those in need, and even deliver services. The government should include OPDs in decision-making – “nothing about us without us” is a mantra of the disability rights movement. For instance, when drafting building codes or education plans, having representatives with disabilities at the table ensures practical needs are addressed. Cameroon’s national disability committee should have real enforcement powers and a budget, rather than being merely advisory. Ensuring reliable data is also part of empowerment – Cameroon’s statistics on disability are outdated and patchy. Conducting a nationwide disability survey (perhaps as part of the next census) would help plan better services and track progress.

In terms of best practices, Cameroon can look to countries like Germany for inspiration, while tailoring solutions to its context. Simple steps like training more special education teachers, investing in sign language interpretation (perhaps at first on national TV news and in courts, then more widely), and setting up a national wheelchair provision program could make a world of difference. Community-based rehabilitation – taking services like physio and basic medical care into communities – can reach disabled people in remote areas who currently get no support. Creating economic opportunities is another area: offering microfinance or entrepreneurship training to persons with disabilities, or perhaps a quota for public sector jobs, could start to chip away at employment inequality. Every small success will also help erode stigma, as Cameroonians see disabled peers as productive co-workers and students rather than objects of pity.

For Germany, the journey is further along, but not over. One major goal is to achieve full inclusion in education and community life, moving away from segregated settings. The German government is under pressure from activists and UN guidelines to phase out the old special-school system in favour of supporting disabled students in mainstream schools whenever possible. This will require more resources – hiring teacher aides, adapting curricula, and making classrooms accessible – but it will benefit society by producing a generation that grows up together, with and without disabilities, familiar with each other. Inclusive education not only helps disabled children reach their potential, it also teaches non-disabled children to value diversity and collaborate with people of all abilities from a young age. Some German states have already made strides here; others need to pick up the pace to shed that high 82% exclusion rate of the past. Along with education, housing is a focus: ensuring that more housing is accessible or easily adaptable. Germany’s population is ageing, so homes that work for wheelchair users (no-step entrances, wider doors, elevators in multi-story buildings) will also serve an ageing populace. Recognising this overlap, the government has incentive programs for retrofitting homes and has set targets for public housing to be accessible.

In the workplace, Germany can share its quota model and continue improving it. The fact that over 100,000 companies in Germany choose to pay a fine rather than hire disabled workers shows there’s room to tighten compliance or provide better support to employers in finding qualified disabled candidates. Initiatives like mentorship programs linking businesses with disabled job seekers, or showcasing companies that excel in inclusion, can shift attitudes. Moreover, as technology evolves, Germany is focusing on digital accessibility – making sure new digital services, from banking apps to voting machines, are usable by everyone. This is a moving target, but Germany’s experience can offer a template for countries like Cameroon that are beginning to digitise services: accessibility should be baked in from the start, not added as an afterthought.

The broader lesson for both countries is that inclusion is an ongoing process. Laws and infrastructure are critical, but human perception must evolve as well. It means hiring the qualified blind lawyer because you trust her expertise, not because of a quota – but having the quota until such bias disappears. It means a Cameroonian family refusing to hide their disabled child at home, and instead fighting for his right to go to school – believing he is worth it because he is. It means a German teacher not assuming a child with a learning disability cannot handle a subject, but rather finding new ways to teach it. And it means celebrating achievements of people with disabilities not as inspirational exceptions but as normal and expected contributions. A disability should neither be a life sentence of marginalisation nor a constant headline of bravery – it should be an unremarkable fact about someone, like being left-handed or having brown eyes, that doesn’t stop them from living their life or being respected.

The Journey Ahead

From the bustling cities of Germany to the towns of Cameroon, the journey toward full disability inclusion continues. The differences in their starting points are vast: one has modern accessibility features nearly everywhere, the other is only beginning to retrofit basic infrastructure; one largely views disability through a human rights lens, the other grapples with lingering superstitions. Yet, both countries affirm a simple truth – disabled people are an integral part of humanity. How we include them is a measure of our society’s core values. The inspiring news is that when we remove barriers for the minority, we often boost the well-being of the majority. The curb-cut effect reminds us that an investment in accessibility is an investment in everybody’s freedom. A ramp in a Cameroonian village helps a grandmother and her grandchild just as much as a wheelchair user. Accessible websites in Germany help a tired parent juggling a baby, just as they help a blind user with a screen reader. In the end, the call is the same in Yaoundé as in Berlin: “leave no one behind.”

Cameroon’s challenges are steep – it must dispel harmful myths, implement laws, and commit resources so that disability is no longer seen as a curse but as a natural part of life. Germany, while advanced, must not become complacent – it should continue to tear down the remaining walls (some literal, some figurative) that segregate or exclude. When a disabled person in Buea can navigate their town as freely as a disabled person in Munich, we will know progress has truly been made. Until then, we should aim for more than empathy; we should aim for action – informed by best practices, backed by strong policies, and driven by the voices of disabled people themselves. The dignity and potential of millions depend on it. By transforming curses into curb cuts – replacing prejudice with inclusion and innovation – both Cameroon and Germany can move closer to a future where ability, not disability, defines us.