Age and Disability Capacity Building Programming (ADCAP)

ADCAP aimed to improve understanding of the needs and capacities of older people and people with disabilities in humanitarian crises by developing resources, strengthening individual and organisational capacity and collecting evidence.

Resources include minimum standards for age and disability, e-learnings and training packages. The project worked with organisations in Kenya, Pakistan and in the UK and supported eight dedicated advisers who worked to influence their organisation’s policy and practice on age and disability.

Christian Aid was supported with funding for two advisers, one based in London (with a focus on organisational change process) and another position in Kenya focusing on field implementation.

Christian Aid carried out an assessment on age and disability and set an action plan outlining three key areas:

• organisational policies and commitment
• project and programme design and
• technical capacity, knowledge and skills.

Key achievements

This project was not accompanied with resources for programming and so it has been necessary for the staff members to generate opportunities and funding to ensure that the project objectives are met.

The approach called 'inclusive programming' is a process of ensuring that everyone, regardless of gender, age or other dimension of diversity is treated equitably and given fair and free opportunity to participate and have influence in activities, decisions and structures which affect their life.

Read more about our work on inclusive programming (PDF)

We have brought together our gender sensitive programming materials, institutional guidance packages (such as ECHO gender and age marker) and sector standards into a single simplified approach to guide programming choices and practice in this area.

Milestones

1. Creation of an inclusion working group bridging development and humanitarian with regional input
2. Establishment of regional inclusion advisers for Africa and Asia
3. Development of a range of practical tools including scoring tool, checklists and training materials
4. 19 training sessions with 284 Christian Aid staff and partners being trained
5. Extensive trial and refinement of inclusive programming materials through roll out in South Sudan, Myanmar, Kenya, Ethiopia and Nepal
6. Capacity development for gender focal points in country programmes in Asia and Africa (x2 5 day workshops including field based practical elements)
7. Mobilising resources across the organisation and externally: e.g. PPA funding for inclusion roll out, humanitarian funding from South Sudan and Nepal response and integration into the Irish Aid HPP portfolio
8. Trials of data disaggregation and inclusive approaches using digital data in needs assessments in BRACED project, West Africa, Sierra Leone, Bangladesh and Nepal
9. Incorporation of inclusive programming approach and intersectionality considerations into existing gender justice strategy
10. Capturing lessons learnt in a Leave No One Behind Practice Paper
11. Ongoing organisational commitment to increase inclusion through events like gender and inclusion month, signing of the inclusion and disability charters. Read our blog 
12. 24 individual action plans with resulting changes in monitoring, training of partners, activities at field level
13. External engagement and influencing INGO's, START network, GADN network, ACT Alliance (for latter – active contribution to Community of Practice on Disability Inclusion)

Find out more about other Disaster and Emergency Preparedness Programmes