Disability-Inclusive Disaster Governance: Reconstructing Human Development and Cultural Resilience through a GEDSI Lens

Abstract

Disaster governance in Indonesia continues to operate within a predominantly reactive and technocratic framework that fails to account for the differentiated vulnerabilities of persons with disabilities and other marginalised populations. Although formal commitments are enshrined in Law No. 24/2007 on Disaster Management, Peraturan Kepala BNPB 13/2014 on Gender Mainstreaming in Disaster Management, and the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030, substantial implementation gaps remain in data disaggregation, participatory planning, equity-sensitive budgeting, accessible communication, and inclusive recovery. This article contends that these gaps cannot be meaningfully closed without fundamentally reconceptualising disaster governance through an integrated Gender Equality, Disability and Social Inclusion (GEDSI) lens, one grounded simultaneously in human development theory, socio-cultural resilience, and livelihood transformation. Using a qualitative doctrinal-policy and document-based research design that combines thematic analysis with normative policy evaluation, the study draws on three core sources: Indonesia's National Disaster Preparedness Baseline Assessment (NDPBA), the UN Women GEDSI Mainstreaming toolkit for disaster risk reduction, and the BRIN livelihood transformation study ‘Menghadapi Bencana, Mengubah Masa Depan’. The analysis uncovers four structural governance deficits, a reactive-emergency institutional orientation, technocratic and exclusionary decision-making architecture, a persistent absence of sex-age-disability disaggregated data (SADDD), and budget insensitivity coupled with weak accountability. In response, the article proposes the Disability-Inclusive Disaster Governance (DIDG) Model, structured across four interconnected dimensions: SADDD-grounded evidence inputs, inclusive governance processes, operationally specific implementation mechanisms, and equitable development-oriented outcomes. The principal contribution of this work lies in weaving disability-inclusive governance together with human development, culturally grounded resilience drawn from Indonesian community evidence and livelihood transformation into a single, analytically coherent, and policy-actionable framework, one with direct implications for reforming BNPB and with transferable relevance for disaster-prone, middle-income countries across the ASEAN region.

Keywords: GEDSI; disability-inclusive governance; disaster risk reduction; human development; livelihood transformation