The configuration of the humanitarian coordination structure in Cox’s Bazar is quite unusual. Typically, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) would be the lead agency in the response. However, when the Government of Bangladesh adopted the National Strategy on Myanmar Refugees and Undocumented Myanmar Nationals in 2013, it granted the International Organization for Migration (IOM) a key leadership role. Due to criticism from other agencies, IOM established the Inter-Sector Coordination Group (ISCG) in 2016, which organizes the agencies involved in the Rohingya response into 12 thematic sectors and subsectors, as well as working groups on cross-cutting issues such as Gender in Humanitarian Action, Communicating with the Communities and Information Management and Assessment. This structure largely resembles the cluster approach that was designed in 2005 by the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) for non-refugee situations (Sida and Schenkenberg, 2019, p. 16). At Cox’s Bazar level, the senior coordinator of the ISCG ensures the humanitarian coordination of the overall response, "including liaison with the [Office of the Refugee Relief and Repatriation Commissioner], District Deputy Commissioner and government authorities at upazila level" (ISCG, 2020, p. 37). Since late 2017, a senior executive group in Dhaka has supported the work of the ISCG. The group is co-chaired by the IOM Chief of Mission, the United Nations Resident Coordinator and the UNHCR country representative. It provides strategic guidance to humanitarian agencies and liaises with the National Task Force and relevant ministries on sector-specific issues (Ibid., p. 37). This unusual arrangement grants IOM "a larger than usual implementation role in an overlapping mandate with UNHCR" (Wake and Bryant, 2018, p. 25) and fosters concomitant inter-agency competition, which proved to be particularly detrimental in the early phases of the large-scale refugee crisis. Both IOM and UNHCR assumed responsibilities for different camps, applying different quality standards for service delivery and different, yet overlapping, systems of data collection (Sida and Schenkenberg, 2019, p. 16). Moreover, fragmentation and weak linkages between the agencies’ sectors created unfavourable conditions for certain groups of refugees. For example, the site management teams treated the construction of service facilities merely as a technical operation without taking into consideration protection concerns (Ibid., p. 17). |
The creation of an enabling environment for persons with disabilities in the camps is also hampered when agencies cannot remodel their service facilities or face a lack of available land. One respondent explained:
Interview with a United Nations staff member.Note: See also Holloway and Fan (2018, p. 11) and ISCG (2019, p.12). |
It’s not easy to change the infrastructure of our service facilities [after government approval]. We are trying to make them a little bit more accessible, but we cannot build a proper ramp. We do not have that much land. |
The lack of land is – at least for some organizations – a particular hindrance to reducing the physical barriers for persons with disabilities in the camps.35 However, it is important not to limit disability inclusion to physical accessibility. Institutional barriers also impact inclusive humanitarian programming. They stem from the configuration of the United Nations coordination structure, with IOM and UNHCR both assuming responsibility for different camp areas, issues with land allocation, the general dynamic environment that leaves little time and room for capacity-building and monitoring, and high staff turnover within the organizations. While some progress has been made, multiple priorities, limited resources and often limited internal capacity on disability inclusion have posed challenges for organizations striving to become more inclusive in their operations. However, all agencies that participated in this study had taken some measures to increase their organizational capacities on disability inclusion, for example through training or appointment of so-called ‘inclusion champions’. Moreover, many United Nations agencies were thinking about ways to adapt some of their survey tools to incorporate the Washington Group Short Set of questions.
Donor-recipient partnerships with disability-focused NGOs offer a great opportunity to support change processes within United Nations agencies. They contribute to awareness-raising and capacity-building and provide support to promote inclusive programming. Nonetheless, the respective agency is ultimately responsible for ensuring disability mainstreaming and inclusive programming, including meaningful participation. Respondents from agencies that displayed a high internal motivation for change at both headquarters level and within the country programme were more positive about and receptive to the support they received from the disability-focused organizations. Regrettably, disability-focused NGOs only have limited capacities to provide training and technical assistance, which forces them to focus on a limited number of agencies and organizational units. Similarly, the period of cooperation between disability-focused NGOs and individual agencies is often too short to have a significant impact on the wider mission, especially when the agency operates in various sectors and employs thousands of staff members. Therefore, technical and financial support from the global headquarters and a strong motivation among staff members at all levels of the organization remain indispensable for successful inclusion of persons with disabilities in their programming and services.