In a disaster or conflict, loss of livelihood is one of the biggest impacts that a household can experience. It affects people’sability to survive. In addition, assets and resources may be destroyed or become inaccessible, and household support networksare often disrupted. Livelihood programming assists people to meet their basic needs and achieve self-reliance by helpingthem to recover and acquire (or reacquire) access to resources and assets that will enable them to safely and sustainablysecure a living.
International human rights law affirms that every person has the right to work, to freely choose their employment and to beprotected from unemployment. However, persons of working age with disabilities have very high unemployment rates in both developingand industrialized countries. In developing economies, unemployment is as high as 80–90 per cent.137 A number of factors explain this, including employer bias, the absence of accessible workplaces, and poor access to informationand finance. The fact that the abilities of persons with disabilities are widely unrecognized, often by their families aswell, is also a contributing factor.