Community Based Rehabilitation (CBR) was initiated by WHO following the Declaration of Alma-Ata in 1978 in an effort to enhance the quality of life for people with disabilities and their families; meet their basic needs; and ensure their inclusion and participation. While CBR was initially a strategy to increase access to rehabilitation services in resource-constrained settings, CBR is now a multisectoral approach working to improve the equalization of opportunities and social inclusion of people with disabilities while combating the perpetual cycle of poverty and disability. CBR is implemented through the combined efforts of people with disabilities, their families and communities, and relevant government and non-government health, education, vocational, social and other services.

Community Based Inclusive Development (CBID) is an approach to enable disability inclusive development on the ground. It brings about change in the lives of people with disability at community level, working with and through local groups and institutions. It enhances and strengthens earlier work described as Community Based Rehabilitation.

An increasingly number of organisations use nowadays the term CBID to indicate that in fact the end goal of what they aim for is inclusion for all and as such it has a clear link with the Leave no one Behind agenda of the Sustainable Development Goals.