‘Making Disaster Risk Management work for people with disabilities’. This was the theme of the expert meeting DCCD and the Liliane Foundation organized on 17 March 2016 in The Hague, in cooperation with in cooperation with Light for the World, the Karuna Foundation and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands. One of the aims of the meeting was to agree on relevant messages for multilateral donors at the World Humanitarian Summit in Istanbul on 23-24 May, 2016.
Participants at the meeting were humanitarian organisations, disability organisations and representatives of Southern organisations with practical experience in inclusive disaster risk management. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs also was well represented.
Read the report of the expert meeting.
Recommendations
The meeting resulted in practical advices regarding the cooperation between humanitarian and disability organisations and also in a number of policy advices towards the World the role of the Netherlands’ role in this.
In the broadly supported recommendations a few basics are key. First, ensure that people with disabilities (and their families) are involved in the entore process of disaster risk management. In particular, their involvement is essential in the phase in which communities are made resilient to disasters. If people with disabilities already at that time are ‘visible’ and participate in thinking about practical solutions for how to reach them and meet their needs if the worst comes to the worst, it is already a major step forward. But (political) participation is essential as well, form local development committees to the World Humanitarian Summit. Nothing about us, without us!
Next, there is the impostance of data dusaggregation. Although complex in chaotic situations, several examples show that disaggregation is possible, even in conflict areas. In the recommendations Minister Ploumen for Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation is asked to underline at the World Humanitarian Summit the importance of disaggregated data and to call for at least gender, age and disability disaggregation.
Finally, recommendations underlines the importance of ‘localization’. Dealing with and acceptance of people with disabilities is very contextual. Let international organizations work well with local Disabled People’s Organizations and other local actors, who like no other know how to handle this. The way people with disabilities are looked at and treated, is very contextual. International organisations must work together with local Disabled People’s Organizations and other local actors, who like no other know how to handle this.
See the full recommendations
