UNDRR Survey on Living with Disabilities and Disasters

The United Nations Office for Disaster Risk (UNDRR) is conducting a survey that has been designed for a person living with a disability or a caregiver to share their thoughts on living with disasters. It will run until Friday 3 March 2023 and is currently available in Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Indonesian, Russian and Spanish.

You can access the survey here.

This is a 10-year follow-up to a 2013 survey done by UNDRR to ascertain the needs of persons living with disabilities and disasters. Those survey results are still cited today. In this new survey, UNDRR is again inviting persons living with disabilities and other members of society to express their concerns, needs, and recommendations.

The background to the survey is the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030. It is the main international agreement aimed at reducing risk and harm from disasters and it mentions persons living with disabilities as key stakeholders.

The purpose of the survey is to review whether the one billion people who live with disabilities and disaster risk today are more involved in planning and decision-making processes to reduce risk or build resilience than they were in 2015, when the Sendai Framework was adopted.

The findings from this survey will be used to influence the remaining 7 years of the Sendai Framework’s implementation until 2030. In particular, it will help to inform a Mid-Term Review, which ICSI has contributed to, and which is being done by countries, regional organisations and the United Nations.

The Mid-Term Review will conclude in May 2023 at a high-level meeting of the United Nations General Assembly. Its outcome will be important for future implementation of the Sendai Framework and how much priority is given to the needs of persons living with disabilities. It will also feed into other United Nations meetings and summits on sustainable development and climate change.

UNDRR would like to thank the following partner organizations for both their inputs for this survey and their guidance to disability-inclusive DRR: International Disability Alliance, World Deaf Federation, World Institute for Disability, The partnership for inclusive strategies, RIADIS, ONG Inclusiva, National Indigenous Disabled Women Association Nepal, The Disability-inclusive DRR Network for Asia and the Pacific (DiDRRN), Pacific Disability Forum, European Disability Forum, UNHCR, OHCHR.

For more information, please visit the survey website here.

Photo: Defense.gov U.S. Marine Corps photo by Cpl. Robert J. Maurer.