For too long the risks faced by people with disabilities in crisis settings have been exacerbated by their exclusion from humanitarian preparedness, response and recovery.

The new IASC Guidelines on inclusion of persons with disabilities in humanitarian action provide an opportunity for humanitarian actors to deliver on their commitment to ‘leave no one behind’. These are the first humanitarian guidelines to be developed with and by people with disabilities and their representative organisations alongside traditional humanitarian stakeholders.

In March 2020, a group of UK-based international NGOs, coordinated by Islamic Relief Worldwide in conjunction with HPG, hosted a roundtable discussion to identify strategies for using the IASC Guidelines to mainstream disability inclusion within humanitarian interventions. This roundtable learning note summarises the key points of discussion.

(IASC is the Inter-Agency Standing Committee – a unique forum for coordination, policy development and decision-making involving the key UN and non-UN humanitarian partners; HPG is the Humanitarian Policy Group at ODI.)

Veronique Barbelet and Tom Palmer