Nepal's Response to Earthquake 2015: Experience of Emergency Responders and Humanitarian Assistance providers in Inclusive and Accessible Humanitarian Assistance Delivery

The earthquake that hit Nepal in 2015 received worldwide attention for the devastation it caused to lives and infrastructures. Yet, the impact of it on people with disabilities (PWDs) and experiences of emergency responders and humanitarian assistance providers have remained under researched. This study aims to explore first hand experiences faced by emergency responders and humanitarian assistance providers to evaluate the effectiveness in implementation of disability inclusive and accessible emergency response during disaster; and to identify good practices and barriers faced by them in facilitating inclusive and accessible recovery and rehabilitation post disaster. Lessons learnt from barriers and challenges faced by the service providers, when addressed, will promote improved policies, processes and programmes around inclusive and accessible emergency and humanitarian response, recovery and rehabilitation. This study is based on semi-structured interviews with 20 key informants/stakeholders, and thematic analysis of the data generated. Findings suggest that most stakeholders were engaged in disability inclusive disaster risk management (DiDRM), capacity building and resilience developing awareness campaigns. However, there are significant gaps in policies, training and practices. These gaps include, a dire lack of inclusive and accessible equipment and resources; lack of and failure to implement and utilise knowledge and resources available; lack of data and guidelines on disability inclusive emergency response (DIER); and lack of communication and coordination between emergency responders and DPOs. These challenges hindered search and rescue (SAR) and relief efforts resulting in inappropriate and slow recovery and rehabilitation for PWDs. This study recommends for including PWDs in planning, designing and building inclusive and accessible emergency preparedness, response, SAR toolkit and emergency shelters. Nepal now has opportunities to integrate accessible infrastructures, DiDRM and implementation at community level. One way of achieving DiDRM at community level could be building a bank of desegregated data, skilled volunteers and accessible equipment to meet the emergency needs of PWDs