Recent research found 5.8 per cent of people with disabilities sustained injuries, versus 2.4 per cent non-disabled people indicating that people living with disabilities were 2.45 times more likely to have been injured during Cyclone Pam.
With 1 billion, or 15% of the world’s population, experiencing a form of disability, and 80% of whom living in low- and middle-income countries, it is crucial that persons with disabilities be accounted for in disaster risk management activities.
In this paper, the authors propose a conceptual framework for understanding the impact of the policy responses to COVID-19 on disabled people. These responses have overwhelmingly focused on individual vulnerability, which has been used as a justification
Across Europe and Central Asia, people with disabilities have too often been excluded from disaster risk reduction (DRR), early warning systems and evacuation planning, and have faced compounding risks and barriers while displaced from their homes.
During a disaster people with disability are often invisible. They are left out because systems set up before disasters make it hard for them to be involved.
