Resources search

This report was produced under a United Nations Partnership on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNPRPD) project to support countries in designing and implementing disability-inclusive response and recovery planning for COVID-19. Throughout this project, UNICEF documented examples of good practice and learnings from partnerships with organizations of people with disabilities (OPDs) in public health emergencies, including COVID-19. The objectives of this initiative were to gain a better understanding of the factors that facilitate effective partnerships between humanitarian actors and local, regional, and national OPDs, and the challenges to be addressed.

This report presents the findings from a ‘deep dive’ undertaken by UNICEF East Asia and the Pacific Regional Office to consider the experiences in Cambodia, Indonesia, the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines and the Pacific. The target audience for this report includes OPDs and humanitarian actors at global, regional, and country levels.

This guide is designed to support UNHCR staff, partners and other stakeholders at field level to:

• Recognize the protection concerns and capacities of refugees with disabilities and other persons with disabilities protected and assisted by UNHCR;
• Apply the principles reflected in the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) and UNHCR Guidance on Working with Persons with Disabilities to a range of programs and sectors;
• Design immediate and long-term strategies to mitigate protection risks and promote the inclusion of persons with disabilities in UNHCR programming.

The four modules include:

• Introductory module - Organizing an accessible and inclusive workshop (Module 1);
• Promoting a rights-based approach to disability (Module 2);
• Raising awareness about the impact of forced displacement on persons with disabilities (Module 3);
• Learning key strategies to foster inclusion of persons with disabilities in forced displacement (Module 4). 

This guidance note provides an overview of the risks that persons with disabilities face in the COVID-19 response regarding accessing humanitarian services and proposes actions to address these risks within the CCCM response specifically. This note draws on the IASC Guidelines on Inclusion of Persons with Disabilities in Humanitarian Action, 1 CCCM chapter, applying these to the northwest Syria COVID-19 response

This Disability, Gender and Age Resource aims to support staff to better understand intersectionality. An intersectional approach reminds us of the need to look deeper at the way multiple individual characteristics and societal factors intersect to compound discrimination in any given context. This resouce is split into w main sections:

In Section A, we introduce the concept of intersectionality, its use as a lens to understand vulnerability and the relevance of ‘context’. Section A also introduces a few critical concepts: the fact that disability, gender and age are all social constructs, the centrality of power and the need to transform unequal power relations.

In Section B, we provide some guidance on inclusion and bias; the need to consider the wider environment; how to work with social norms; how to understand power differently; and empowerment and participation processes.

This situational analysis (SITAN) addresses the question: “what is the current situation for persons with disabilities in Nigeria?”. It has been prepared for the Disability Inclusive Development programme (which works on access to education, jobs, healthcare, and reduced stigma and discrimination for persons with disabilities in Bangladesh, Jordan, Kenya, Nepal, Nigeria, and Tanzania), to better understand the current context, including COVID-19, and available evidence in Nigeria. It will be helpful for anyone interested in disability inclusion in Nigeria, especially in relation to stigma, employment, education, health, and humanitarian issues.

Humanitarian organizations and donors have committed to change the way humanitarian action is carried out and create a “Participation Revolution.” In this webinar issues addressed included:

• inclusion of the people and communities affected by humanitarian crises in practice;
• how organizations are ensuring that the voices of the most vulnerable groups considering gender, age, ethnicity, language, and special needs are heard and acted upon;
• how program activities and budgets are designed to support the changes that affected people demand

In this webinar, organized on 26 March 2020 by PHAP and the Steering Committee for Humanitarian Response, we took stock of the progress to date on workstream six of the Grand Bargain and heard success stories from the field that can help agencies achieve a sustained change in how they design and deliver their programs.

A full transcript is available. Webinar registrants were asked to provide what they thought, in their context, was the most important factor enabling participation in practice and what they thought was the most important factor preventing participation in practice. Answers are provided in an Annex.

Purpose: To find modifiable factors that are related to subjective well-being would be valuable for improving interventions in fibromyalgia. Physical activity, sedentary behaviour, and physical fitness may represent potential areas to optimize treatment regimens. In fibromyalgia, there is a discordance between clinical observations and patient-reported outcomes (objective and subjective assessments). Therefore, the present study aims at analyzing the associations of objective and subjective evaluations of physical activity, sedentary behaviour, and physical fitness with subjective well-being and determine if and how objective and subjective associations differ.

Methods: In this population-based cross-sectional study participated 375 women with fibromyalgia from the al-Ándalus project (Spain). Physical activity, sedentary behaviour, and physical fitness were objectively (accelerometers and performance testing) and subjectively (questionnaires) measured. Participants self-reported their levels of positive affect, negative affect, and life satisfaction.

Results: In the most conservative multivariate analysis, we found independent associations of the objective measures of physical activity with positive affect and life satisfaction and sedentary behaviour with positive affect. No such relationship was seen with subjective measures of the same behaviours. Moreover, we observed that objective and subjective physical fitness evaluations were independent of each other related to subjective well-being.

Conclusions: Independent associations of the objective measures (but not the subjective assessments) of physical activity with positive affect and life satisfaction, and of sedentary behaviour with positive affect were observed. However, objective measures and subjective appraisals of physical fitness appear to be independently related to well-being, which should be considered when developing physical exercise interventions for fibromyalgia.

The 2015-2017 Advocating for Change Project (AfC), a project funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), aimed at promoting and advocating for rights of people with disabilities through the push for the ratification of the UNCRPD at the national level, improving quality decentralization process at the local level and promoting quality livelihood action for people with disabilities through improved and inclusive vocational training center (CNEFP) in Tibar.

One particular activity in this project is the collection and dissemination of best practices with the "Making it Work" methodology. This methodology aims to document and promote already existing best practices that adhere to the principles of UNCRPD. Making it Work utilizes a multi stakeholder approach and encourages members of DPOs and other organizations to identify best practices and effective action in and surrounding their localities. These best practices are then collected with the ultimate goal to serve as examples of embodiment of the UNCRPD for replication by organizations or institutions elsewhere.

In early March 2019, heavy rains and floods affected the majority of the districts in southern Malawi. At least 115,000 were affected, with scores of fatalities, injured and missing persons. The situation intensified when Cyclone Idai reached Malawi, increasing the devastation caused by heavy rain weeks earlier. When Cyclone Idai caused the Shire river to reach capacity and flood, the districts of Chikwawa and Nsanje were among the worst affected. The aim of this rapid needs assessment was to inform the design of  HelpAge International’s own humanitarian response to the devastating impact of Cyclone Idai on older people in Malawi. The Malawi Network of Older Persons’ Organisations (MANEPO) and HelpAge International jointly conducted the assessment in Chikwawa and Nsanje districts in March 2019. The report also aims to support organisations operating in the affected areas to develop inclusive programmes and support advocacy for the rights of older people to be upheld in the response. The report contains key findings of the assessment, together with observations and analysis.