CBM Global and IOM to address barriers faced by migrants with disabilities

News | January 10, 2022

On the 28th January 2021, the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) signed a five-year Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with CBM Global. This partnership is a very important step forward for IOM in its efforts to take more meaningful action in addressing the barriers faced by migrants with disabilities, particularly within humanitarian settings.

Both organisations will work towards the roll-out of the Inter Agency Standing Committee (IASC) Guidelines on the inclusion of persons with disabilities in humanitarian settings, with a particular focus on increasing the participation of people with disabilities and their representative organisations in the work of Camp Co-ordination and Camp Management (CCCM) as well as Cash-Based Interventions (CBI).

IOM’s Director General, Mr. Antonio Vitorino states:

“This is an exciting venture for IOM especially at a time when the UN is looking at ways to strengthen its approach to disability inclusion. CBM Global has already been a very important partner to IOM by providing technical advice to field operations. This MoU will enable us to take the learning from these successful collaborations and feed it into institutional-level changes that IOM wants to put in place to strengthen its approach on diversity and inclusion.”

The focus of the first year of this partnership will be on creating evidence-based tools and resources that will be developed through the involvement of both entities in a select number of humanitarian operations.

David Bainbridge, Executive Director of CBM Global, welcomed this practical approach towards the collaboration stating that “The partnership with IOM is of particular significance as it mutually supports furthering disability inclusion in humanitarian action, allows joint learning on inclusive practices and will offer a real understanding of how organisations of persons with disabilities (OPDs) can be part of finding creative solutions to overcome exclusion. CBM Global believes that the partnership with IOM provides an important opportunity to create lasting change and greater positive impact on the lives of people with disabilities, particularly in humanitarian settings”.

The results of the collaboration will feed directly into wider inter-agency efforts to ensure that people with disabilities are not left behind during humanitarian crises – particularly focusing on how to ensure people with disabilities are fully and meaningfully involved in the actions that are intended to protect them.

Main image: Centre for Disability in Development (CDD), CBM Global’s strategic partner in Bangladesh, and IOM staff discussing inclusive protection mechanisms at a refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar. ©Masud Kayser/CDD

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