CBM Welcomes IASC Guidelines on Inclusion of Persons with Disabilities in Humanitarian Action

Community members and staff stand and sit together to listen and discuss the crisis

Staff from CBM and partner organisation CDD meet with clients from host communities during the response to the Rohingya refugee crisis in Bangladesh, September 2018. From top right: Shagar Monjurul (CDD Prog Manager based in Dhaka), Nazmul Bari (CDD Director), Paul Liton (Area Manager Ukhia), Azizur Rahman (CDD PM based in Cox's Bazaar). From left bottom: Christian Modino Hok (CBM Humanitarian Director) and Carmen Valle (CBM Mental Health Global Advisor). ©CBM
©CBM

CBM representatives were present in New York on 12 November for the launch of the first-ever Guidelines on the Inclusion of Persons with Disabilities in Humanitarian Action by the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC).

The guidelines reinforce CBM’s inclusive humanitarian activities, which aim to equally reach and actively involve persons with disabilities.

“CBM very much welcomes the launch of the IASC guidelines on inclusion of persons with disabilities and humanitarian action,” said CBM Humanitarian Director Christian Modino Hok.

“We will strongly support their roll-out, both in our work with partners—including organisations of persons with disabilities (DPOs)—and by promoting disability inclusion in the wider humanitarian sector in general.”

CBM’s humanitarian action initiative works to ensure that persons with disabilities receive the vital humanitarian relief needed when disasters strike, and is fully involved in the planning and delivery of this aid.

Similarly, CBM’s community-based inclusive development approach aims to include the knowledge and experience of persons with disabilities in disaster risk reduction (DRR) activities.

The IASC guidelines are the first humanitarian guidelines to be developed with and by persons with disabilities and their representative organisations together with traditional aid agencies. They represent the end of three years of intense, consultative and collaborative interagency work, and will assist in planning, implementing and evaluating disability-inclusive humanitarian action.

Learn more about how CBM operates in humanitarian situations here.