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This paper explores how PWD’s well-being is realized in disaster situations in Kisumu County of Kenya. Statistics from the National Council for People with Disability indicates that a significant population of 15,760 people are disabled across Kisumu County. Their well-being is protected by the UN Conventions on the Rights of Disabled People (UNCRDP) and UN Charter on Inclusion of Persons with Disability during disasters. At the national level, the well-being of persons with disability is taken care of in the Disability Act, 2003 and the National Disability Policy. Despite existence of a humanitarian policy framework, the well-being of the disabled is compromised in disaster situations within Kisumu County because of lack enforcement mechanisms and implementation structures in the policy. The humanitarian policy framework limits humanitarian action to response which compromises the well-being of PWD. For example, during the 2007/2008 Post-Election Violence persons with disability struggled to find food and health services. Some suffered as a result of floods in Nyando since they were unable to escape from foods in 2015. The disabled escaped from foods by being carried on peoples or cattle backs at a fee since better evacuation means were non-existent. Therefore, humanitarian policy framework is yet to adequately pay attention to the disabled in disaster situations. This means that persons with disability are much more vulnerable in disaster situation than the able-bodied. Kisumu County suffers from both manmade and natural disasters and as a result the number of PWD has increased due to vulnerability to disasters. The study employed semi-structured questionnaire instruments to gather information on humanitarian policies applicable to PWD in disaster context. It was used with humanitarian officers-98 and government officers-98. Further, the researcher adopted semi-structured interviews with open-ended questions which were employed as one of the methods for data collection to provide qualitative data and were complemented by the quantitative data. The researcher used interviews with the regional director of Kenya Red Cross Society, regional directors of UN agencies, the Kisumu County special programs officer, managers of DPOs and director of National Council for People with Disabilities. Secondary data was collected from a variety of sources which included library books, information from journals and other government documents on contributions of humanitarian organizations to the well-being of persons with disability in disaster context. These documents include the national Policy in PWD, Kenya constitution, 2010, UN conventions on PWD. The variables of the study were subjected to descriptive statistics. The qualitative data was analyzed by consolidating emerging themes from the key informant interviews, topic analysis, and cut and paste methods on the focus group discussion transcripts. Quantitative data was analyzed using descriptive statistics such as frequencies and percentages. The researcher presented data findings in form of frequency tables, pie charts, bar graphs and narratives. From the key findings, the study concludes that the international humanitarian policies, as well as national humanitarian policies are restrictive in nature since they limit how PWD are supposed to be protected in disasters. The reason is that they lack enforcement and implementation mechanisms to support the wellbeing of persons with disability in disasters. The study recommends that international humanitarian policies such as the UN Convention on Inclusion of Persons with Disability and UN Convention on the Rights of persons with Disability be reviewed to clearly capture mechanisms or structures on how to protect persons with disability in humanitarian action. The international humanitarian policy need to broaden its consideration on situation of risk. In its current form, they are too restrictive and thus limit humanitarian agencies operations. The national humanitarian policy such as the National Disability Policy and Disability Act need to be reviewed to indicate clearly what is considered as humanitarian situation. The national humanitarian policy is restrictive in the sense that they do not indicate type of disasters which affect PWD.

How a Restricting Humanitarian Policy Framework Compromises the Well-being of Persons with Disability in Disasters Situations in Kisumu County, Kenya