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Paper short abstract:

This paper explores the impacts of climate-related disasters on a highly marginalised and under-researched community - disabled people. Drawing on recent fieldwork in Ethiopia, the influence of institutions on the capabilities of disabled people affected by extreme droughts and floods is anaylsed.

Paper long abstract:

Capabilities, as conceptualised by Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum, provide an apposite framework to examine the impacts of anthropogenic disasters, privileging individual freedom to exercise choice and providing a means to operationalise a rights-based discourse into development practices which centre humanity and sustainability. Within this framing, the social model of disability encourages examination of how institutional processes, ranging from legal and policy contexts to norms, attitudes and stigma, shape the development and expression of these capabilities.

This research draws on these concepts to explore the relationship between climate change, disability and capabilities. Data from 17 semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders in the disability sector in Ethiopia (disabled peoples organisations, international organisations, NGOs, donors and activists) and 25 structured interviews with disabled people in Dire Dawa, a part of Ethiopia which is subject to droughts and floods, undertaken in 2022, are analysed to explore the experience of disabled Ethiopians against the set of Nussbaum’s “central capabilities”.

Findings demonstrate that disabled people in Ethiopia experience restricted capabilities across this set and that climate change exacerbates this disadvantage. Institutions play a critical role in mediating and exacerbating this restriction, from stigmatisation within families and communities and limited awareness of disability amongst key actors through to policies, laws and processes which often fail to protect or reflect disabled people and their capabilities. This has a material impact on the vulnerability of disabled Ethiopians to weather-related disasters, denying them the material means, social support and livelihood options to develop resilience and adapt to changing conditions.