Disability in humanitarian response

Supriya Akerkar writes:

Regardless of a country’s level of prosperity, people with disabilities and older people are the most affected in humanitarian crisis, facing disproportionate impacts. Even with positive frameworks such as the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and age and disability inclusion in the Sendai Framework of action for disaster risk reduction (2015-2030), there are adoption and implementation gaps that lead to discrimination and lack of assistance to older people and people with disabilities.

The Age and Disability Capacity Programme (ADCAP), funded by the US Office for Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA) and the UK Department for International Development (DFID) has partnered with international development organisations to tackle these exclusions. CENDEP has been a research partner following the work of those organisations that have sought to ensure inclusion of older people and people with disabilities in humanitarian responses. The lessons from this project are captured in the recently completed Good Practice Guide: embedding inclusion of older people and people with disabilities in humanitarian policy and practice (2018, in press).

As part of the Oxford Human Rights Festival, there will be  a public seminar (1-2pm) and workshop (2-5pm) on 'Disability in Humanitarian Response' at Oxford Brookes University on 13 March. 

For the public seminar, Dr. Supriya Akerkar, Programme Coordinator MA Development and Emergency Practice and Senior Lecturer in Disaster Risk Reduction, will be sharing the main research learnings from the ADCAP's experience followed by a Q&A. She will be joined by Dr Richard Carver, Senior Lecturer in Human Rights and Governance at CENDEP, who will be the discussant for this talk.

The afternoon workshop will have speakers from Christian Aid UK, Islamic Relief International UK and Help Age International UK. The speakers will reflect on their organisational experiences and also on what remains to be done further to embed disability inclusion in humanitarian responses.

We are hoping to welcome individuals and organisations interested or involved in development or humanitarian practice join us in the discussion. If this is of interest to you or your organisation then please sign up on eventbrite to join: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/disability-in-humanitarian-responses-tickets-43499857244. The public seminar will be held in the Glass Tank exhibition space in the Abercrombie Building and the afternoon workshop in room 128 of the John Henry Brookes building - both on the Gipsy Lane campus.