GPC Commitments and Recommendations ahead of the Global Disability Summit

Persons with disabilities experiencing a humanitarian crisis are at elevated risk of rights violations due to attitudinal, institutional, physical and communication barriers to safety and life-saving services during times of socio-economic breakdown and suspended or dismantled services. In 2022, over 41 million persons with disabilities are expected to need humanitarian assistance.

Ahead of the Global Disability Summit (GDS) taking place on 16-17 February 2022, the Global Protection Cluster (GPC) published its commitments and recommendations for humanitarian partners.

The GPC commits to strengthening disability inclusion in all areas of their work. This includes embedding disability inclusive efforts across information and analysis, advocacy, learning and capacity building and operational field support to the 32 National and Subnational Field Clusters, by:

1. Supporting Field Clusters to build strong partnerships with Organisations of Persons with Disabilities (OPDs) in field operations and support leadership and participation by persons with disabilities in protection coordination, needs assessments and service implementation.
2. Deploying a disability inclusion technical specialist to field operations to provide training and support within the core functions of National and Subnational Clusters.
3. Strengthening gender, age and disability disaggregated data, protection analysis and reporting by ensuring monitoring of the rights of persons with disabilities including the existing barriers to humanitarian services in field operations.
4. Supporting Field Clusters to ensure protection risks for persons with disabilities are included in briefings of senior decision makers such as Inter-Cluster Coordination Groups (ICCGs) and Humanitarian Country Teams (HCTs) to strengthen disability visibility in country level Centrality of Protection (CoP) and HCT protection strategies.
5. Supporting Field Clusters to strengthen linkages between GBV, Child Protection, Mine Action, Education and Health.
6. Advocating at global and country levels for strengthened disability inclusion in other key sectors such as WASH, Education, Food Security and Livelihoods, Health, Shelter and Camp Coordination.