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The United Nations Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) announced the launch of the Guide for the Inclusion of Persons with Disabilities in Humanitarian Actions.

The IASC created in 2016 a team tasked with defining guidelines for the inclusion of persons with disabilities in humanitarian actions, which would be compiled into a guide to guide the work of humanitarian actors, governments and communities. The team integrated more than 90 actors with activities in the humanitarian area and carried out its work from January 2017 to June 2019.

The priority given by the Secretary-General of the United Nations (UNSG) to the inclusion of persons with disabilities in different areas of work of the United Nations should be underlined, as well as the need to devise specific strategies to assist these individuals in crisis situations, as the impacts are felt by them in a more profound way.

Also noteworthy with the publication of this guide is the finalisation of these guidelines, three years after the World Summit on Humanitarian Affairs, which showed that the issue of the inclusion of persons with disabilities in humanitarian actions would have to move away from the “one fits all” paradigm to instead take into account the condition of each individual.

Finally, we highlight the statements of UNICEF's Deputy Executive Director, Charlotte Petri Gornitzka, who, during the presentation of this Guide, in addition to calling for the establishment of a more systematic and coherent method for this inclusion, made a point of praising the recent humanitarian action in Mozambique that revealed that the investment made in training and raising awareness of technicians in the area of providing support to people with disabilities, contributed to the good results that were achieved.