The IASC will host a webinar on Persons with disabilities in humanitarian response: New guidelines for more inclusive humanitarian action, on February 26, organized by ICVA and PHAP together with IASC and the Reference Group on Inclusion of Persons with Disabilities in Humanitarian Action, which will introduce the guidelines and discuss how they can be implemented in practice.
Persons with disabilities are among the most marginalized people in crisis-affected communities and disproportionately affected by conflict and disasters. In some contexts, their mortality rate is two to four times higher than that of persons without disabilities and persons with disabilities face substantial barriers to accessing assistance. A recent study found that 92% of humanitarian actors think that persons with disabilities are not properly taken into account in humanitarian response and are often considered only as recipients of aid and not as actors in the response.
As one of the few global initiatives where the persons concerned have been directly involved in the drafting of a tool serving intervention at their benefit, these Guidelines are a crucial step forward to achieve disability-inclusive humanitarian action. They serve the following four objectives:
- To provide practical guidance on including persons with disabilities in humanitarian programming and coordination;
- To increase capacity among humanitarian stakeholders to develop and implement quality programs that are inclusive of persons with disabilities;
- To describe the roles and responsibilities of humanitarian stakeholders to include persons with disabilities in humanitarian action; and
- To increase and improve the participation of persons with disabilities and organization of persons with disabilities in preparedness, response and recovery.
