Accessibility Statement
NDFD's commitment to making our digital services usable by everyone in Dominica, regardless of ability or device.
Our Commitment
The National Development Foundation of Dominica (NDFD) is committed to ensuring that our website and online services are accessible to the widest possible audience, including persons with disabilities, older adults, and individuals using assistive technologies or limited-bandwidth internet connections in rural and underserved communities across Dominica.
We recognise that digital accessibility is not a one-time achievement but an ongoing responsibility. We actively work to identify and remove barriers that may prevent any member of our community from accessing information about our loan products, business development programmes, and financial resources.
Technical Standards
This website is built to conform to the following accessibility standards and best practices:
- Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1, Level AA — our target standard for all pages, including perceivability, operability, understandability, and robustness of content.
- Semantic HTML5 structure — we use proper landmark elements (
<nav>,<main>,<section>,<footer>) so that screen readers and assistive technologies can navigate our pages accurately. - Keyboard navigation — all interactive elements on this site, including navigation menus, forms, and download links, are operable using a keyboard alone without requiring a mouse.
- Colour contrast — text and interactive elements meet or exceed the WCAG 2.1 AA minimum contrast ratio of 4.5:1 against their backgrounds.
- Descriptive link text and ARIA labels — links and buttons include descriptive text or
aria-labelattributes that communicate purpose to assistive technology users. - Responsive and mobile-first design — all pages adapt cleanly to screen sizes from small mobile phones to large desktop monitors.
- Reduced motion support — our page-load animations and transitions are suppressed for users who have enabled the "Reduce Motion" preference on their device.
- No autoplay media — this website does not use autoplaying audio or video that could disorient users of screen readers or cause difficulties for persons with photosensitive conditions.
Lightweight Design for Low-Bandwidth Access
NDFD operates in a development context where not all clients have access to high-speed internet. Our website is intentionally engineered as a lightweight, fast-loading resource:
- We use no heavy content management systems, database-driven page rendering, or large JavaScript frameworks on our public-facing pages.
- Large documents, including AGM reports and policy publications, are hosted on an external Google Drive repository rather than our web server, so that page load times remain minimal.
- Our text-based chat and enquiry widget is designed to be lightweight and fully text-driven, ensuring usability on low-end devices and slow connections without requiring audio, video, or large downloads.
Known Limitations
While we strive to meet WCAG 2.1 AA standards across all pages, we acknowledge the following current limitations:
- Some older PDF documents in our Google Drive repository may not be fully tagged for screen reader accessibility. We are progressively updating these documents. If you need an accessible version of any document, please contact us.
- Our online loan application portal (powered by a separate web application) is built to accessibility standards but may have areas we have not yet fully tested with all assistive technology combinations. We welcome feedback.
Requesting an Alternative Format
If you are unable to access any content on this website, or if you would like any information provided in an alternative format — including large print, plain text, audio description, or by telephone — please contact us using any of the following methods:
We aim to respond to all accessibility requests within 3 business days and to provide the requested alternative format within 7 business days of the initial request.
Feedback
We welcome feedback on the accessibility of our website and digital services. If you encounter a barrier that is not listed above, or if you find that a page or feature does not meet the accessibility standard we have committed to, please let us know.
Your feedback directly informs our ongoing accessibility improvement work and helps ensure that NDFD's services remain genuinely open to every Dominican who needs them.
Enforcement
If you are not satisfied with our response to an accessibility request or complaint, you may contact the relevant government authority in the Commonwealth of Dominica or seek advice from a disability advocacy organisation.