Disability inclusion strategy for the Humanitarian Response in Myanmar

WHY THE NEED FOR STRATEGY?

There is a need to scale-up disability inclusion and expand targeted support to persons with disabilities, who face a variety of barriers to accessing humanitarian services. These include physical barriers, institutional barriers, communication barriers, financial barriers, safety concerns and discrimination.

• The 2024 Multi-Sectoral Needs Assessment (MSNA) in Myanmar showed that over a third of households have at least one member with a disability, with 13 -17 per cent of individuals living with a mild, moderate or severe disability and 3 per cent with a moderate or severe disability.

• The combination of individual impairments and insufficient or inaccessible communication pathways creates additional barriers for persons with disabilities, limiting access to information on the evolution of the conflict, risks, humanitarian aid, including shelter, protection services, food and non-food items, medical assistance and family tracing.

• Economic crises increase the burden on households with persons with disabilities, raising risks of developmental delays and long-term physical and/or intellectual impairments among children due to poor maternal and infant nutrition. Similarly, children with disabilities face increased challenges in accessing quality education.

• Women and men with disabilities are often left behind during emergency responses, despite their critical need. For example, Cyclone Mocha in 2023 caused significant injuries and increased the short-term and longer-term need for disability support. A Needs Assessment found that 25 per cent of people with disabilities felt that services provided did not meet their needs, whilst 18 per cent felt unsafe accessing services.

• Children with disabilities often miss out on education and child protection services, if not specifically included in program design and implementation. Children without disability, but whose primary caregiver has a disability also face unique challenges and, in some cases, effectively serve as head of household.

• Inclusion of people with disabilities is not currently a major priority for humanitarian actors in Myanmar. This is not due to lack of interest, but rather due to limited capacity, data and resources.

• Despite efforts from donors, such as Myanmar Humanitarian Fund (MHF) to encourage 13 per cent of targeted beneficiaries to be people with disabilities, many projects report only 3-5 per cent of beneficiaries as people with disabilities.

• There is lack of support (technical and financial) for organizations and local groups to be informed and implement the inter-cluster coordination group’s (ICCG) goals, despite increasing recognition of the importance of localization.

• When people with disabilities are targeted in the humanitarian response, the focus tends to be on persons with physical impairments and often overlooking those with mental, visual, hearing or communication challenges.

• Improving disability inclusion will boost efficiencies in delivering program objectives, strengthening assurance and accountability processes is crucial to mitigating risk and enhancing program quality as part of operationalizing the humanitarian principle of impartiality.