Disability inclusive disaster risk reduction – still a tick marking exercise?
Persons with disabilities’ mortality rate can be two to four times higher than the rest of society when facing a disaster situation. They are disproportionately impacted and most at risk in crisis-affected communities. When adopting the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030, governments committed to develop their national and local disaster risk reduction (DRR) strategies (Target E) by 2020 and by the end of 2021 about 118 countries have reported having done so (Sendai Framework Monitor). Based on a study conducted by UN WOMEN, only 26 out of 193 UN Member States have a policy related to disaster risk for groups most at risk (women, children and youth, persons with disabilities, poor people, migrants, indigenous peoples and older people).
A disability-inclusive disaster risk reduction policy and practice review undertaken in 2021 by the European Disability Forum in Europe and Central Asia, mapped inclusive policies that actively engage Persons with Disabilities Organizations in the decision-making process. Preliminary results indicate that, with few exceptions, most countries do not actively engage them. Furthermore, no example of systematic data disaggregation by disability were found in national information systems on DRR in Europe and Central Asia.