1 The IASC is the highest-level humanitarian coordination forum. It comprises 18 United Nations and non-United Nations agencies to ensure sound preparedness and response efforts. For more information, see the Inter-Agency Standing Committee website.
2 DG ECHO is currently reviewing some pilot indicators for measuring protection mainstreaming achievements, including disability inclusion (DG ECHO, 2019, p. 22).
3 The United Kingdom’s DFID was renamed the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) in September 2020. This report will refer to DFID as it was the name of the department during the research and writing phases.
4 For a broader perspective on vulnerability, see Funke and Dijkzeul (2021).
5 This report refers to the Rohingya people in Bangladesh as Rohingya refugees as they satisfy the criteria for refugee status under international law (see Wake and Bryant, 2018, p. 2). Myanmar refuses to use the term Rohingya. The Bangladeshi Government, which has not signed the 1951 Refugee Convention, and national organizations officially refer to the Rohingya in the country as ‘Forcibly Displaced Myanmar Nationals’.
6 Of these are 48 INGOs and 61 NNGOs (ISCG, 2020, p. 7).
7 Field notes, 15 and 28 January and 4 February 2020; interviews with humanitarian actors in Cox’s Bazar. The Bangladeshi Government restricts the right of the Rohingya to receive formal education.
8 In this report, humanitarian actors comprise all actors providing humanitarian support to the Rohingya refugees and/or their host communities, regardless of whether they consider themselves as such.
9 CBM and CDD jointly implement all of their projects to benefit from each other’s experience and expertise. The organizations refer to this collaboration as a ‘partnership approach’. Since the ADWG does not implement any projects, the two organizations are mentioned separately in activities that refer to the ADWG.
10 Kutupalong is a refugee camp in Ukhiya. The abbreviation ‘RC’ (registered camp) refers to a section within the camp that was established before the mass influx of Rohingya Muslims into Cox’s Bazar in 2017. It is one of two government-run refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar, the other being Nayapara, which is located south of Kutupalong. Together, they host approximately 45,500 refugees (UNHCR, 2019a).
11 This overview cannot replace a comprehensive needs assessment and does not claim to be all-inclusive.
12 Previous estimates indicated that more than 900,000 refugees would reside in the camps in Cox’s Bazar district (ISCG, 2019, p. 10).
13 See also footnote 4.
14 Twenty-seven organizations signed the statement, including, CARE, Danish Refugee Council (DRC), HI, Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) and World Vision.
15 Field notes, 24 January and 4 February 2020.
16 Interview 22. See also Human Rights Watch (2020a); Human Rights Watch (2020b); Reliefweb (2020).
17 Field notes from 24 January 2020.
18 Field notes, 4 February 2020.
19 Field notes, 24 January 2020; conversation with NNGO staff.
20 A Household Income and Expenditure Survey (HIES) from 2010 found that 9 per cent of all citizens have a disability, while a World Bank case study on disabilities in Bangladesh estimated that 16.2 per cent of all working age people in Bangladesh had some kind of disability (Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency [Sida], 2014, p. 1). In the 2016 HIES estimate, the number was lower at 6.94. per cent. See Ministry of Planning, Statistics and Informatics Division and Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (2016).
21 Some international organizations and scholars also raise the issue of corruption (see Risk and Compliance Portal 2020 and BdNews 2019).
22 Interview 24.
23 Skype interview with a local government official, January 2021.
24 These points are similar to and reflect the three key areas of inclusion in the Humanitarian Inclusion Standards (ADCAP, 2018, p. 10): 1) data and information management; 2) addressing barriers; 3) participation of older people and people with disabilities, and strengthening of their capacities.
25 This is in line with the four ‘must do actions’ of the IASC Guidelines and the three key areas of inclusion of the Humanitarian Inclusion Standards. However, the empowerment of persons with disabilities is more difficult to achieve because as mentioned previously, refugees are not permitted to establish OPDs and there are none from the host communities where the camps are located. This issue will be discussed in the next sections.
26 Disability-focused organizations are also open to other forms of cooperation, for example, with INGOs, NNGOs or local disability-focused NGOs, as well as forms of partnership that include capacity-building measures (and not targeted services).
27 As indicated, a clear hindrance for the participation of persons with disabilities during the early stages of the response was the absence of OPDs in Cox’s Bazar. Apart from the founding organizations, the Disabled Persons’ Organization (DPO)-Cox, International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Resource Integration Centre (RIC), Social Assistance and Rehabilitation for the Physically Vulnerable (SARPV), Young Power in Social Action (YPSA) and Centre for the Rehabilitation of the Paralysed (CRP) are members of the ADWG. Other organizations regularly attend their meetings.
28 This is a technical expert group on policy issues. It includes: UNHCR, HI, DRC, Oxfam, BRAC, NRC, ActionAid, UNICEF, World Vision and the International Organization for Migration (IOM).
29 For an overview of the objectives, see Protection Working Group (2020).
30 As mentioned previously, the empowerment of persons with disabilities in the camps and host communities is more difficult to achieve.
31 Interview 5, representative of a United Nations agency.
32 Interview with a United Nations staff member.
33 Interview 13.
34 Field notes from 5 February 2020; conversation with a representative from an INGO.
35 However, the United Nations has a comparatively strong negotiation position with the government and could use it to advocate for the rights of persons with disabilities. As part of the senior executive group, UNHCR, IOM and the United Nations Resident Coordinator are in constant communication with the authorities and can raise pressing issues regarding the inclusion of persons with disabilities.
36 Some INGOs were in the process of localising their staff. By the end of 2020, Save the Children, for example, was planning to employ only Bangladeshi citizens.
37 In 2019, the top ten donors to the response were, in descending order: the United States of America, the United Kingdom, Germany, Australia, Japan, European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations (ECHO), Canada, the Thani Bin Abdullah Bin Thani Al-Thani Humanitarian Fund (a foundation established by the ruling family of Qatar), and Sweden (OCHA, n.d.).
38 Interview 8.
39 Interview 14.
40 The amount of funding made available in 2020 is not yet known. Nonetheless, many NGOs reported that they had to reduce programme costs and camp visits revealed that some organizations had to close down their service centres. World Vision, for example, had closed some of their women-friendly spaces in the camps due to funding shortages.
41 Interviews 12 and 15; field notes, 4 February.
42 Interview 22, conversation with humanitarian staff (senior management) 4 February 2020; focus group discussion.
43 Interview 20.
44 Ibid.
45 The problem for staff members is that they usually do not know whether they will be able to continue in their roles once project funding ends. This uncertainty means they need to continuously search for new jobs.
46 Interview 29.
47 “‘Rest and recuperation’ (R&R) is a measure to protect the health and well-being of staff and ameliorate work-life balance. It enables international staff to take a break from hazardous, stressful, difficult, and isolated working conditions” (UNHCR, 2018).
48 Interview 29.
49 Interview 22.
50 Interview 22.
51 Focus group discussion.
52 See ISCG (2019, p. 13) for more information on this issue.
53 It is important to note that some organizations mention that the reporting requirements of donor organizations can be more cumbersome.
54 Field notes, 19 January 2020.
55 Conversation with staff from a disability-focused NGO, 22 October 2020.
56 In January 2020, for example, it lifted some of its restrictive policies and allowed Rohingya children to receive formal education in Bangladesh.
57 Interview 16, representative of an INGO.
58 Some respondents feel that "for different camps there are different types of rules, created by the respective CiCs in charge" (Interview with a representative of an NNGO, 2 February 2020). However, there are no separate rules and regulations for different camps. There are instances where CiCs from different camps request additional documents and clarifications, which can result in confusion among the implementing organizations.
59 Conversation with a representative of an INGO, 6 February 2020.
60 Conversation with humanitarian staff (senior management), 4 February 2020.
61 Interview 20.
62 See also REACH Initiative (2020), p. 5.
63 Skype conversation with staff from a disability-focused NGO, 22 October 2020.
64 Field notes, 26 January and 4 February. The task team is a technical expert group. During regular meetings, a selected group of organizations discusses policy issues and issues pertaining to emergency preparedness. Members of the task team are UNHCR, UNICEF, IOM, United Nations Population Fund, HI, the Danish Refugee Council, Oxfam, World Vision, BRAC, Caritas Bangladesh and ActionAid (Protection Working Group, 2019). In many humanitarian contexts, working groups that promote the inclusion of persons with disabilities fall under the broader umbrella of protection mainstreaming, which is spearheaded by UNHCR. Therefore, this collaboration is not unusual and the risk that these groups will strongly depend on UNHCR is not unique to Cox’s Bazar. Nonetheless, it is worth highlighting that, ultimately, disability has to be mainstreamed in all sectors as part of the broader protection mainstreaming approach.
65 Conversation with UNHCR staff member.
66 However, since data collection ended, informal disability committees have formed in the camps.