Inclusive Disaster Risk Reduction Post 2015: Handicap International Expertise

Handicap International has been working for 15 years in several countries to support Inclusive Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) in Central America, Caribbean, Latin America as well as South and South East Asia. The main focus is to ensure that the “most at risk groups” of being negatively impacted by natural hazards such as women, children, elderly and other socially excluded groups and especially people with disabilities, are fully part of DRR policies and practices.

In 2012, Handicap International co-founded the Disability Inclusive Disaster Risk Reduction Network (DIDRRN) in Asia to advocate for Inclusive Disaster Risk Reduction at three different levels:

• To ensure post Hyogo Framework for Action (HFA) is inclusive for the “most at risk groups” including people with disabilities.
• To ensure all DRR processes and activities such as prevention, mitigation and preparedness are inclusive at national level and that States report on their progresses on a regular basis.
• To ensure that inclusive national laws, policies and frameworks on DRR are implemented at local level.

In this light, the overall goal of this paper on Inclusive Disaster Risk Reduction is to present Handicap International expertise in terms of how to develop and implement inclusive DRR into national and local practices.