Ms Niamh Carty:

I thank the Chairman and committee members for giving me this opportunity to meet them to discuss this critical issue. I am the programme director at Oxfam Ireland. My purpose is to share some insights with members of how a mainstream aid and humanitarian organisation can work to ensure the rights of people with disabilities in our programming. More than 1 billion people in the world today live with some disability, accounting for approximately 15% of the global population or one in seven individuals. Disability disproportionately affects people living in poverty, as 80% live in low and middle income countries. Decades of work in the disability sector led to the formulation in 2006 of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, CRPD, the first human rights treaty of the 21st century, which was adopted by the United Nations to protect and reaffirm the human rights of people with disabilities. The Government signed the convention in 2007 and ratified it in March 2018. In 2015 the sustainable development goals came into force to deliver the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The goals aim to mobilise everyone in the fight against poverty and inequality and ensure no one will be left behind.

As many of my colleagues have stated, the principle of inclusion of people with disabilities laid down in the convention and the sustainable development goals is reflected in Ireland’s new international development policy, A Better World, which was launched earlier this year under the banner Reach the Furthest Behind First. This development is welcomed by Oxfam Ireland and we look forward to supporting its implementation.

As Oxfam’s mission is to fight poverty and inequality, we strongly support the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the focus the sustainable development goals place on people with disabilities. Oxfam’s code of conduct and our partnership principles protect and affirm the rights of the vulnerable people we seek to benefit, including people with disabilities. In addition, in 2018 we signed the Charter for Inclusion of Persons with Disabilities in Humanitarian Action.

With the support of Irish Aid, Oxfam Ireland’s work focuses on the poorest and most marginalised communities in countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, Malawi, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda and Zimbabwe. Within these communities poor women, unemployed youth, people with disabilities and people living with HIV are our primary targets. Our goals are to provide humanitarian assistance and protection, for economic empowerment, gender equality and essential services for all. We know that in these contexts very few people with disabilities access employment and that women with disabilities are two to three times more likely to face gender-based violence. Literacy rates are as low as 3%.

In response to all of this we aim to create economic opportunities, increase gender equality and improve access to essential services for people with disabilities. We also seek to amplify their voices by facilitating the influencing of policies and legislation relevant to them.

We have conducted research with Trinity College Dublin into the most effective HIV policies and programmes for people with disabilities in sub-Saharan Africa, using it to influence state and non-state actors on the need to design and implement these types of policy and programme. More recently, in Malawi we conducted research into the lack of participation of people with disabilities in the formulation and implementation of health policies. This is significant because Malawi has some of the best health policies in the world, but insufficient public funds means that they are not put into practice. This negatively impacts on everyone, but for people with disabilities, it makes life even more challenging. Take, for example, Mr. Peter Simoni, a wheelchair user and member of a local disability committee in a community where we work in Malawi. There is no wheelchair ramp in the local healthcare centre and he is forced to crawl on his hands and knees to get into the building to access the healthcare he needs. With the support of Irish Aid and through our work with local partners, he has been able to reclaim his rights and demand quality healthcare for himself and his community. It included ensuring an ambulance designated for his local healthcare centre was made available for him and others who had previously been denied the service.

Through our humanitarian programme work on water, sanitation and health promotion, we provided dedicated latrines at household level for people with disabilities. The facilities include improved access, handrails, raised platforms and combined bathing and sanitation units. Households with people with disabilities are the focus of our emergency food security and vulnerable livelihoods work. They receive unconditional assistance in line with the lack of mobility of people with disabilities and the burden of responsibility on carers of people living with disabilities. Through our protection work, we seek to ensure the identification of those who are most vulnerable in a crisis. People with disabilities are often the least visible and rarely heard. We strive to ensure their needs and rights and those of their families are respected.

Looking to the future, we are working with Oxfam’s global learning and humanitarian teams to understand better approaches to identifying and defining disability in development programmes and emergencies. Oxfam Ireland aspires to being a champion of disability inclusiveness in the wider Oxfam confederation. We work with local partners who have experience of working with people with disabilities to develop inclusive disaster preparedness and disaster risk reduction guidelines. More than that, we want to ensure all of our programmes and technical guidelines are updated to include the needs of persons with disabilities. This will involve assessment protocols and accountability and feedback processes accessible to people with disabilities. We also want to see consistent reporting of data and taxonomy for disability across all of our programmes, with disability responsive budgeting. Ways should be found to ensure persons with psycho-social and intellectual disabilities – the ones most left behind – participate meaningfully in development and humanitarian action. This will not be easy, but we are working with our colleagues in the Dóchas disability inclusiveness working group, including CBM Ireland, to make progress.

Oxfam Ireland is fully aware that failure to do what I have outlined will result in leaving persons with disabilities behind. It will also mean a failure to realise the commitments made in the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and ultimately a failure to achieve the sustainable development goals. We stand in solidarity with people with disabilities and greatly appreciate the support of the committee on this important matter and the requests made.