By IDA

 - January 4, 2022

 UN (Blue), Disability Movement (Purple, building on the Wethe15 Campaign colours), NGO/broader Humanitarian Civil society actors (Red), and the principles of Coordination, Integration, Inclusion and Diversity of identities and backgrounds of members. On the right hand side: The acronym "drg" in small letters (less aggressive and more stylish than capital letters) refers to the most commonly used name of the group (Disability Reference Group) with the full official name of the group underneath it: Reference Group on Inclusion of Persons with Disabilities in Humanitarian Action.

Monthly Newsletter | Issue 16 - December 2021

Man from China with Prosthetic Carrying Wood

Reference Group on Inclusion of Persons with Disabilities in Humanitarian Action

Dear DRG members,

Welcome to the 16th edition of the DRG Newsletter and the last one of 2021!

The year is coming to a close and we do not want to end it without wholeheartedly thanking you all for your continuous engagement, commitment, interest, support and fabulous contributions which have no doubt helped start delivering on a strong footing the long term DRG mission and mandate. 

In 2021 we have made great progress in the implementation of our workplan and managed to secure some funding for critical activities aiming at supporting humanitarian practitioners and organisations of persons with disabilities be better equipped to deliver and engage in inclusive humanitarian action. We also organized and contributed to a number of global events to further promote and roll out the IASC Guidelines on Inclusion of Persons with Disabilities in Humanitarian Action and keep raising awareness on the importance of protecting the rights of persons with disabilities and ensuring their full participation in crisis situations. Last but not least, the DRG reached more than 200 members from across the globe making it an incredibly rich and diverse group, energy of which we should capitalize on to keep delivering, coordinating, exchanging and learning in the new year.

We look forward to an enhanced collaboration in 2022 and your ongoing inspiration!

Elham Youssefian (International Disability Alliance), Christian Modino Hok (CBM Global) and Kirstin Lange (UNICEF)

© CDPF

Child Rights Resource Centre - Save The Children

Child Rights Resource Centre is an open access knowledge hub with information on child rights from Save the Children and partners. The platform collaborates across the entire child rights movement to make the most relevant and up-to-date knowledge available to those working to strengthen the rights of the child. The new platform features a new layout, improved functions and an optimized search engine. Accessibility is a cornerstone of future development for the platform, with more improvements to come.
Would you like to have your knowledge materials on disability inclusion displayed on the Child Right Resource Centre? Submit for inclusion by uploading directly on the platform or emailing resourcecentre [at] savethechildren.org.

 

>> Link to the Child Rights Resource Centre
//resourcecentre.savethechildren.net/
Alt Text: Smiling boy leaning against his walking stick in Rohinya Refugee Camp with text reading “Sharing Knowledge for an Equitable Future: https://resourcecentre.savethechildren.net/

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Launch of Good Practice Documentation from Rohingya Response in Bangladesh

In partnership with the Centre for Disability in Development (CDD), CBM has been providing health and rehabilitation services in the Rohingya camps and host communities since December 2017. This document provides an in-depth overview of the service model serving as a guide for other humanitarian actors on implementing inclusive health and rehabilitation services. This document describes in detail the three main components – including examples of good practice and lessons learned – which make the model successful:

  • accessibility of services
  • the multidisciplinary team approach
  • provision of home-based rehabilitation

>> Link to the Good Practice Documentation from Rohingya Response in Bangladesh

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Prolonged COVID-19 Pandemic Deepens Hardship for Over 12 Million Forcibly Displaced People with Disabilities

The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) estimates at least 12 million people with disabilities are forcibly displaced worldwide and their already precarious situation is becoming harder as the COVID-19 pandemic drags on. Refugees and internally displaced and stateless people with disabilities were already less likely to access health care, education and employment opportunities, and the global crisis has further compounded this situation. On the International Day of Persons with Disabilities, UNHCR urged national authorities to do more to secure the rights of forcibly displaced and stateless people with disabilities and to counter all forms of discrimination.
 

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Disability Data Collection in a Complex Humanitarian Organisation: Lessons from a Realist Evaluation

In recent years, global attention to disability inclusion in humanitarian and development contexts, notably comprising disability inclusion within the Sustainable Development Goals, has significantly increased. As a result, UN agencies and programmes are increasingly seeking to understand and increase the extent to which persons with disabilities are accounted for and included in their efforts to provide life-saving assistance.
To explore the effects and effectiveness of such measurement, this paper applies a complexity-informed, realist evaluation methodology to a case study of a single measurement intervention. The goal is to assess how a disability measurement intervention operated in practice, to help improve understanding of how best data can be leveraged to support inclusion in humanitarian and development activities.

>> Link to the Full Article

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Phase 2: Leave No One Behind - Field Research in Bangladesh on Inclusive Humanitarian Action
Using the global Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) Guidance on the Inclusion of Persons with Disabilities in Humanitarian Action, the Leave No One Behind Project jointly delivered by Humanity and Inclusion, CBM and the Institute for International Law of Peace and Humanitarian Law (IFHV) at the Ruhr-University Bochumis  supports humanitarian actors better understand the human rights-based approach to disability in their work. To better understand the challenges of implementing inclusive humanitarian assistance, and to document best practices, part of the project is dedicated to researching inclusive humanitarian assistance. The first case study focuses on disability mainstreaming in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, where more than 854,000 Rohingya refugees from Myanmar have found refuge. 

>> Link to the Full Report

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Falling Through the Cracks: Inclusion and Exclusion in Humanitarian Action

The humanitarian sector continues to struggle to be inclusive of all groups and needs in crises. Agencies operating in emergencies find it difficult to address the needs of ‘new’ categories of ‘vulnerability’ – or for that matter to think outside the restrictive categories of ‘vulnerability’ and embrace a more holistic and flexible approach to people’s needs in crises.
Through a focus on needs in internal displacement settings, ODI explores how vulnerability is conceived and operationalised, and therefore how needs are perceived and understood. The research aims to understand the concept of vulnerability in humanitarian action, and explore why material assistance, service delivery and protection programmes often fail to consider certain groups or individuals that end up being excluded from humanitarian action. The project will aim to inform humanitarian action that is more systemically inclusive.

>> Link to the Report

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A Call for Action on Disability Inclusive Humanitarian Commitments

The DRG is calling on governments, multilateral agencies, and civil society to make concrete commitments for advancing the rights of the over 41 million children and adults with disabilities impacted by humanitarian emergencies.
For this, it is necessary to break the siloes that challenge the power of our collaboration. All stakeholders, including humanitarian actors, States, private sector, communities, organizations of persons with disabilities and others working to promote inclusion of persons with disabilities need to join efforts to scale up investment in disability inclusive emergency preparedness and response.

>> Link to the Full Blog
 

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Please share any feedback you may have on the content and format of this Newsletter with us. You can send any material you want to be included in the next issues of the Newsletter by the last Monday of the month via email rg.disabilityinclusion [at] gmail.com rg.disabilityinclusion [at] gmail.com ()