Stories from the Field 3

Leave No One Behind in Times of Disaster!
—Striving day by day to promote “Disability-Inclusive Disaster Risk Reduction” in the Asia-Pacific region—

The author attending a conference in Bangladesh on “disability-inclusive disaster risk reduction” (Photo: Centre for Disability in Development Bangladesh)

15% of the total population in any given country are estimated to live with a disability.*1 Based on this estimate, it can be calculated that there are currently approximately 690 million persons with disabilities in the Asia-Pacific region. In 2002, when I took up my position at the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), whose headquarters are located in Bangkok, Thailand, that figure was 650 million. Although the number seemed too huge to grasp, it gave me a renewed determination to work hard in my position to improve the rights of persons with disabilities, which I look back on now with a feeling of nostalgia. 

ESCAP provides programs in a variety of ways to the member states and regions*2 to support legal and judicial systems development for social and economic development as a whole in the Asia-Pacific region. With regard to persons with disabilities, since 1993, ESCAP has worked under the leadership of the Government of Japan to launch initiatives for ensuring their human rights and their participation in social and economic development at the policy level, under the “Asian and Pacific Decade of Persons with Disablilities”*3 framework. Today, ESCAP continues to implement various efforts that are not found in other regions, such as Africa and Latin America.

Under such circumstances, with the support of the Government of Japan, I have been working on a technical assistance project for disaster risk reduction, an urgent challenge threatening the lives of persons with disabilities in the Asia-Pacific region, since 2014. Specifically, the project aims to realize “Disability-inclusive Disaster Risk Reduction (DiDRR; disaster risk reduction that reflects the perspectives of persons with disabilities).”

The death rate among persons with disabilities in the event of natural disasters is believed to be higher than that of disaster-affected people in general. This is due to a lack of evacuation drills and preparedness, barrier-free facilities such as evacuation centers and temporary toilets, provision of information through sign language interpretation and subtitles on television and the internet after a disaster strikes, and considerations for persons with a variety of disabilities, including those with intellectual disabilities, developmental disabilities, and autism. There has also been insufficient focus on “disability-inclusion,” which reflects the perspectives of persons with disabilities, in the general policies adopted by most countries.

As a first step towards improving such circumstances, a conference was held in Sendai in 2014 with the participation of government officials involved in disaster risk reduction and various organizations representing persons with disabilities from Indonesia, Bangladesh, and the Philippines, where disasters occur frequently. The results of the discussions among the participants created momentum that led to the incorporation of the “DiDRR” perspective into the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030*4 that was adopted the following year. This result marked a major step forward, including ensuring that the Sendai Framework recognizes persons with disabilities as an important social group that is greatly impacted by disasters, and proclaiming the importance of the universal design principles that ensure the creation of materials and systems that can be used easily by everyone including persons with disabilities, as well as the importance of ensuring that all stakeholders, including persons with disabilities, are involved in policy formulation from the initial design phase.

An ongoing project provides assistance for incorporating the perspectives of persons with disabilities into the day-to-day workings of the disaster risk reduction policies of various countries. The project selected four countries where disasters frequently occur but the “disability-inclusion” perspective does not seem to have penetrated in the mode of action and thinking of officials in charge of the frontlines of disaster risk reduction, and it is creating online education programs in languages of each country and aligned with their respective cultures and customs.

Post-disaster response has become more difficult in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Under such circumstances, I intend to keep making my best effort to realize DiDRR, believing that this is the place to realize the “leave no one behind” principle, a core philosophy of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

AKIYAMA Aiko

Social Affairs Officer, United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific

*1 World Report on Disability 2011 (WHO) https://www.who.int/teams/ noncommunicable-diseases/sensory-functions-disability-and-rehabilitation/world-report-on-disability

*2 A total of 58 countries and regions, including 49 members and nine associate members.

*3 This was then extended in 2003 and 2013 for a further 10 years respectively.

*4 Adopted at the Third UN World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction held in 2015. (See Part II (7) Disaster Risk Reduction for details.)