The Provision of Assistive Technology to Children with Disabilities in Humanitarian Settings: A Review of the Available Evidence on the Current State of Provision, Gaps in Evidence, and Barriers to and Facilitators of Better Delivery

The World Health Organization estimates that 1 billion people in the world live with a disability, of whom UNICEF estimates 240 million are children. The majority of the world's children with disabilities live in low- and middle-income countries, where humanitarian crises are most likely to occur. Humanitarian crises increase the prevalence of child disability and the need for assistive technologies (AT) as children sustain new disabling injuries, children with disabilities lose their assistive devices, or access to limited existing health services is worsened by crisis. In addition, there are likely to be many more children with disabilities in humanitarian settings whose need for AT has never been identified. This literature review discusses the barriers to AT provision in humanitarian settings and considers possible entry points for provision in future. Recommendations include: coordination platforms for the provision of AT; gathering evidence on existing in-country AT provision and strengthening those systems; designing programmes for AT provision that account for pre-existing barriers, within-crises barriers including those internal to humanitarian organisations like UNICEF.