SPEAKER SERIES: BUILDING RESILIENCE DURING THE COVID-19 CRISIS
Session 2 | Managing Tropical Storms During COVID-19: Early Lessons Learned
July 8, 2020 | 8:00 am EDT |
As the COVID-19 pandemic reverberates around the globe, we are reminded that disasters have not been staying home and will need managed in a new and more challenging environment. The current global health crisis has been a stress test for emergency preparedness and response systems that are in place, and the governments are learning where those systems have strengths, and where they need to be improved and adapted.
This event will be the second session of GFDRR’s Building Resilience During the Covid-19 Crisis speaker series. We will be hearing what officials working on the front lines in India, Japan, Vanuatu and the Caribbean have learned so far about responding to and preparing for tropical cyclones during COVID-19, and what advice they have for others who are facing similar challenges.
SPEAKERS
- Esline Garaebiti, Director-General of the Vanuatu Ministry of Climate Change Adaptation, Meteorology, Geo-Hazards, Environment, Energy and Disaster Management
Ms. Garaebiti was appointed as Director-General in February 2020. She had been the Director of the Vanuatu Meteorology and Geo-Hazards Department (VMGD) since 2019, and was previously Manager of VMGD’s Geohazards Division. She is one of three female Directors-General of Ministries in the Government of Vanuatu.
- Kamal Kishore, a member of India’s National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) and co-chair of GFDRR
Mr. Kishore has worked on disaster risk reduction and recovery issues for over 22 years at the local, national, regional and global levels. Prior to NDMA, he worked with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) for nearly 13 years in New Delhi, Geneva, and New York. He led global advocacy campaigns to address disaster risk reduction concerns in the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals and the post-2015 development agenda. He has been the co-chair of GFDRR for the second consecutive year.
- Dr. Muneyoshi Numada, Associate Professor, Institute of Industrial Science, the University of Tokyo
Dr. Numada’s primary research is “Disaster Management Process Engineering”. He has identified 47 activities after a disaster which could be used for the development of comprehensive management plans, and based on this, pioneered a Business Operating Support System (BOSS). He applied the BOSS to the municipalities in Japan. He piloted an international Standard Operation Procedure together with the Indonesian National Disaster Management Agency, Bangladesh Disaster Prevention Bureau, Myanmar Disaster Management Bureau and the University of Hawaii. He also created the university’s Disaster Management Training Center (DMTC) which opened in 2018.
- Elizabeth Riley, Executive Director, Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA)
Ms. Riley has over 20 years of experience in the area of disaster management at the regional and international levels. She is currently leading the coordination of the region’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. In her previous role as Deputy, she was responsible for CDEMA’s technical programming, and provided strategic guidance in preparedness and response, mitigation, recovery, education and training, and information management. She also led coordination of regional response to major hurricanes since 2004.