Image courtesy of Matthew “Hezzy” Smith.
By Matthew “Hezzy” Smith
Bangladesh, at the frontlines of global climate change, provides a critical litmus test for advocacy to ensure that persons with disabilities are included in climate change mitigation and adaptation. The disastrous effects of last summer’s historic flooding in the Sunamganj and Sylhet districts on persons with disabilities show that while the country’s laws and policies gesture toward inclusion, considerable gaps remain between policy and practice.
To its credit, Bangladesh has adopted several national laws and policies that militate disability-inclusive climate action. For example, Bangladesh’s National Disaster Management Plan 2021-2025 recognizes that persons with disabilities “are often overlooked and remain unrecognized, and current national [disaster management] systems and mechanisms require more emphasis on managing risks in an inclusive manner.” Also, the Rights and Protection of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2013 (RPPDA) directs authorities to prioritize persons with disabilities in disaster relief and recovery activities, and organizations of persons with disabilities (OPDs) have become increasingly adept at leveraging RPPDA protections.
There, however, policy gaps — some more noticeable than others. More visibly, Bangladesh is among the many States Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change that fail to refer at all to persons with disabilities in its nationally determined contributions. More specifically, per Bangladesh’s Standing Orders on Disasters, 2019, local-level disaster management committees are responsible for identifying people at pronounced risk of natural disasters due to disability, disseminating alerts and safety messages, evacuating at-risk groups, and generally ensuring the security of persons with disabilities. Yet, unlike the RPPDA, the Standing Orders (p. 104) do not specifically require these committees to prioritize persons with disabilities in post-disaster relief distribution–a critical aspect of disaster management.
Additionally, there are considerable gaps between policy and practice. For example, researchers have found varying degrees of disability inclusiveness in early warning systems in different flood-prone districts. Other researchers have found that “many persons with disabilities do not receive any humanitarian support from NGOs or the Government” following natural disasters. Trenchantly, despite the several references to persons with disabilities in Bangladesh’s climate change adaptation and mitigation policies, OPDs appear not to participate meaningfully in their design and implementation.
For me, the summer 2022 floods in Sunamganj and Sylhet districts exposed these considerable gaps in starkly human terms. While collaborating with Bangladesh Protibandhi Unnayan Sangstha (BPUS) to deliver flood relief to 350 persons with disabilities in Sunamganj and Sylhet, I spoke to dozens of persons with disabilities and family members who reported not having received other forms of humanitarian aid from the governmental or private groups. In a region that lacked grassroots disability-inclusive disaster risk reduction efforts, local leaders were ill-equipped to implement effectively the national policy imperatives to prioritize flood-affected persons with disabilities. Instead, OPDs, dedicated community organizers, and volunteers had to work hard to close the gaps between governmental policies and on-the-ground realities for flood-affected persons with disabilities.
During our relief efforts, Badiul Alam, BPUS’s Executive Director, drove home the extent of these gaps. Poignantly, he cited the example of cyclone shelters in his home district Barisal that he has visited. Many have wheelchair access ramps, and are heralded as accessible by the Bangladesh government and international funders, yet they lack accessible toilets. Indeed, this problem has also been documented elsewhere, suggesting that even Bangladesh’s most inclusive efforts may have only a limited impact on the experiences of persons with disabilities exposed to climate change-induced disasters.
Despite their potential to promote disability-inclusive practices, international agencies may similarly do little to help shore up these gaps at the national and local levels. For example, a recent United Nations Disaster Risk Reduction report on Bangladesh largely overlooks persons with disabilities. Similarly, Bangladesh’s 2020 monitoring and implementation report under the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030 makes scant mention of persons with disabilities and fails to name any disability-specific climate resilience measures. Estimates of the number of persons with disabilities affected by the 2022 floods in Bangladesh by the United Nations Humanitarian Coordination Task Team appear unbelievably low compared with World Health Organization estimates.
Here, the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities has a critical role to play. Charged with monitoring States Parties’ implementation of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), the Committee could do more to spur disability-inclusive climate action by international and national actors. Additionally, the Committee could more frequently address the adverse effects of climate change — something it has done only inconsistently to date. Further, when the Committee has addressed climate change, it has generally focused narrowly on disaster risk reduction and on the degree to which OPDs participated in the development of policy measures. Specifically with regard to Bangladesh, last year the Committee found that OPDs had limited participation in designing and implementing the country’s national disaster response plan and standing orders on disasters. Yet, by focusing in this manner on disaster risk reduction, rather than broader climate action, as well as procedural aspects of climate justice, the Committee may miss opportunities to articulate States Parties’ cross-cutting and substantive climate-related CRPD obligations.
A robust General Comment on Article 11 of the CRPD may help to close these gaps. As urged by numerous individuals and groups who participated in the CRPD Committee’s “Day of General Discussion and call for written submissions on article 11 of the Convention,” such a General Comment might specifically call on States Parties to adopt specific measures, such as retrofitting inaccessible emergency shelters, and collecting disability-disaggregated data on disaster relief and reconstruction activities. The Committee might signal States Parties’ obligations to help persons with disabilities to transition to climate-resilient housing and jobs, as well as to invest resources in building OPDs’ capacity to deliver relief. Last, in addition to States Parties’ obligations, the Committee might articulate the obligations of international aid organizations in facilitating disability-inclusive climate action. Such a broad-based vision of coordinated, inclusive climate action is urgently needed to empower governments, organizations, and individuals to adapt to the climate challenges mounting by the day.
Matthew “Hezzy” Smith is a trilingual attorney, a proud sibling, and Director of Advocacy Initiatives at the Harvard Law School Project on Disability (HPOD).
