90 join workshop on UNDRR-MHEWS scorecard
Some ninety persons with disability focal persons and representatives from organization of persons with disability (OPDs) jointed the United Nations Disaster Risk Reduction – Disability Inclusive Urban Disaster Risk Reduction and Multi-Hazard Early Warning System (UNDRR-MHEWS) held at the New Town hotel last July 29-31, 2025.
The attendees came from various offices of the national and local governments and representatives of the various organizations of persons with disabilities around the city who provided the necessary inputs by narrating their experiences on how to ensure that the city’s disaster risk reduction initiatives will be disability inclusive.
Earlier, the NDRR stated that global urbanization projected that by 205, almost 940 million persons with disabilities will live in cities representing 15 percent of the 6.5 billion urban dwellers.
Further, in the World Report on Disability, more than 1 billion people, or 15 percent of the world’s population, live with some form of disability worldwide; nearly 200 million experience significant difficulties in functioning.
The World Organization (WHO) report also highlighted that ‘across the world, people with disabilities have poorer health outcomes, lower education achievements, less economic participation and higher rates of poverty than people without disabilities.
It added that the said scenario persists because people with disabilities experience barriers in accessing services that many of the population have long taken for granted, including health, education, employment and transport as well as information.
On the other hand, disasters have proven to disproportionately worsen the unfavorable conditions in which persons with disabilities live.
The UN Disability Inclusion Strategy (UNDIS) is the product of a process initiated by the Secretary-General in April 2018 to strengthen system-wide accessibility for persons with disabilities and the mainstreaming of their rights.
It was conceived in line with the recognition of the urgent need for the UN system to improve its performance with regard to disability inclusion.
UNDIS seeks to support member states to achieve the 2030 agenda for Sustainable Development, leave no one behind and reach those furthest behind through all UN pillars, thus, mainstreaming a human rights-based approach to disability, along with other specific measures, will position the concerns and experiences of persons with disabilities as an essential dimension in the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of policies and programs in the political, economic and social spheres so that persons with disabilities benefit on an equal basis with others.
The said workshop was spearheaded by the UNDRR and the Persons with Disability Affairs Office (PDAO) and the City Disaster Risk Reduction Management Office (CDRRMO). – Dexter A. See
