VIRTUAL EVENT: UCL IRDR 10th Annual Conference: COVID-19 Pandemic – a global perspective

2020 UCL IRDR Annual Conference theme: COVID-19 Pandemic – a global perspective
This year’s event will be hosted online. Details of how to log in to the digital conference platform will be sent to registrants through Eventbrite.

The UCL Institute for Risk and Disaster Reduction welcome researchers, students, practitioners, policymakers, the media and the general public to a day of thought-provoking discussions on how the COVID-19 pandemic is impacting vulnerable groups, communities and countries and the necessary changes to emergency management policies and strategies to better manage the current crisis and better prepare for the next. Our in-house and guest experts will present a global perspective on the latest research and analysis through talks, interactive discussions and in conversation. We will explore multi-dimensional aspects of the crisis, considering their physical, social, economic, environmental, institutional, political, cultural and gendered dimensions.

Further details will be updated in due course.

Conference Programme: 

09:00 - 10:00  Conference digital platform login (will be sent to registrants)
10.00 - 10:10  Welcome speech by Professor Peter Sammonds, Director, UCL IRDR and introducing the UCL-IRDR Covid-19 Observatory
10:10 - 10:15  Conference inauguration [Convener: Dr Bayes Ahmed]
10:15 - 11:40  Panel discussion 1: Global Perspective on the COVID-19 Pandemic [Chair: Professor Peter Sammonds]
11.40 - 12.00  Tea break (with networking on Zoom)
12.00 - 13:00  Keynote speech [Chair: Dr Bayes Ahmed]
13:00 - 14:00  Lunch break (with networking on Zoom)
14:00 - 15:00  In conversation with The Rt Hon Hilary Benn MP [Chair: Christopher Gunness] 
15.00 - 16.15 Panel discussion 2: Minorities, Refugees and Migrants in the Pandemic [Chair: Dr Miriam Orcutt]
16:15 - 16:30  Tea break (with networking on Zoom)
16:30 - 17:30  IRDR PhD and MRes Research Showcase [Chair: Myles Harris and Xiao Han]
17:30 - 18:00  Masters Meet and Greet with IRDR Staff and Students for applicants and offer holders [Chair: Dr Gianluca Pescaroli] (Invitations to a separate Zoom meeting will be sent directly to applicants)

Sessions

Panel discussion 1: COVID-19 Pandemic – A Global Perspective 

Chair: Professor Peter Sammonds, UCL Institute for Risk and Disaster Reduction

Professor Peter Sammonds is Director of the UCL Institute for Risk and Disaster Reduction and Professor of Geophysics.

Professor David Alexander: Critical Role of Emergency Planning in the COVID-19 Crisis

David Alexander is Professor of Risk and Disaster Reduction at UCL. He teaches emergency planning and management. His books include “Natural Disasters”, “Confronting Catastrophe”, “Principles of Emergency Planning and Management”, “Recovery from Disaster” (with Ian Davis) and “How to Write an Emergency Plan”. He is the founding Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, and Vice-President of the Institute of Civil Protection and Emergency Management. His research interests include natural hazards, earthquake disasters and emergency planning and management. He is currently working on a new book on emergency management, a companion to his recent emergency planning volume.

Professor Imtiaz Ahmed: COVID-19 and Global Politics

Professor Imtiaz Ahmed was born in Barisal, Bangladesh, and is Professor of International Relations and  Director, Centre for Genocide Studies at the University of Dhaka. Professor Ahmed was educated at the University of Dhaka, The Australian National University, Canberra, and Carleton University, Canada. He is also currently Visiting Professor at the Sagesse University, Beirut. Professor Ahmed is the recipient of various awards and honours. He has authored, co-authored, or edited 26 books and 8 monographs. More than 120 research papers and scholarly articles have been published in leading journals and chapters in edited volumes. His recent publications are the following edited books: Genocide and Mass Violence: Politics of Singularity (Dhaka: Centre for Genocide Studies, University of Dhaka, 2019); The Rohingya Refugee Crisis: Towards Sustainable Solutions (Dhaka: Centre for Genocide Studies, University of Dhaka; BRAC University: Centre for Peace and Justice; ActionAid, 2019); and Women, Veiling and Politics (Dhaka: University Press Limited, 2020).

Dr Punam Yadav: COVID-19 and Gender

Dr Punam Yadav is a Senior Research Fellow and Co-director of the IRDR Centre for Gender and Disaster. She is also the Co-Investigator for the UKRI Collective Fund award – GRRIPP Network Plus (2019-2023). From June, Dr Yadav will be starting her Lectureship in Humanitarian Studies in the new BSc programme on Global Humanitarian Studies. Dr Yadav coordinates an MSc module, ‘IRDR0016 Gender, Disaster and Conflict’. She joined the IRDR in April 2018. Prior to this, she was Research Fellow in the Centre for Women, Peace and Security and Teaching Fellow in the Department of Gender Studies at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Dr Yadav completed her PhD from the University of Sydney in December 2014. She started her professional career as a development practitioner in Nepal and worked for over ten years with various International and National NGOs before starting her academic career in 2010. She has a number of publications including her academic monograph Social Transformation in Post-conflict Nepal: A Gender Perspective, published by Routledge in 2016.

Dr Yadav’s research interests include gender, conflict and disaster; gender and development; women, peace and security; impacts of conflict on women including sexual violence; gender and transitional justice; conflict-induced internal displacement, conflict sensitive programme management; gender analysis, gender planning and mainstreaming, women’s reproductive health and rights; sex-selective abortion, and abortion rights, South Asia, Africa, LAC and Nepal. 

Dr Hui Zhang: COVID-19 Pandemic and Perspectives from China

Dr Hui Zhang is an Associate Professor in the School of Public Administration at Guangzhou University, China. She is the deputy director of the Southern China Disaster Research Center. She received her BSs, MSs and PhD in Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST). Her PhD research focused on building disaster resilience in Chinese urban communities. She held a Postdoctoral position at Keio university working on post-disaster reconstruction in Fukushima. She was one of the first foreign scholars to enter Fukushima’s radiation-contaminated zone after the disaster. She also conducted research on long-term disaster recovery in Wenchuan, China. Her interests focus on sustainable disaster recovery, disaster preparedness, early warning system and community resilience. Her current research is supported by the National Social Science Foundation of China and the National Natural Science Foundation of China. 

 Panel discussion 2: COVID-19 and Refugees, Migrants and Minorities

Chair: Dr Miriam Orcutt, UCL Institute for Global Health

Dr Miriam Orcutt (MBBS, MSc) is a Senior Research Fellow in Global Public Health and Forced Migration at the Institute for Global Health, University College London, and Executive Director of Lancet Migration: global collaboration to advance migration health (www.migrationandhealth.org).  Her main areas of academic and policy interest are: global health policy and governance, health system and medical-humanitarian resilience and response, forced migration and health, structural and political determinants of health for migrants. Her ongoing research collaborations are in Lebanon, Peru and South Africa. Miriam has a particular interest in the effective translation of research into policy and practice. She worked as a Migration Health Specialist for Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) for a year between 2018 and 2019, and as a Public Health and Migration Consultant at the World Health Organisation (WHO EURO, WHO EMRO, WHO Headquarters, Geneva). She is a Visiting Senior Research Fellow at the Conflict and Health Research Group, King’s College London, and a Steering Committee Member of the Syria Public Health Network. Miriam previously worked as a medical doctor in the UK’s National Health Service (NHS), on the Academic Clinical Foundation Programme in Epidemiology and Global Public Health, in Newcastle upon Tyne, UK. In 2018 she was named a Canadian Woman Leader in Global Health, on the inaugural list by The Lancet. 

Marc Gordon, UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR)

Marc Gordon heads the Global Risk Analysis and Reporting Unit in the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR). He is the Coordinator and Lead Author of the Global Assessment Report (GAR) and is leading the development of the Global Risk Assessment Framework (GRAF). He Co-Chairs the Risk Modelling Steering Group of the Insurance Development Forum (IDF), is a member of the Governing Board of the Global Earthquake Model (GEM) and serves in advisory capacities for numerous programmes, projects, collaboratives and initiatives.

From 2012 – 2017 he headed the UNISDR Sendai Framework Monitoring Unit and from 2006 – 2012 he established and led the UNISDR Donor and Business Partnerships Unit. Prior to this, he was the Manager of the Disaster Preparedness and Prevention Programme (DIPECHO) - South East Asia of the European Commission, operating out of Bangkok. From 1997-2003, he served in various capacities from Country Director to Emergency Officer, with both the United Nations & the International Non-Governmental sector in conflict, complex emergencies, political and chronic crises. Relevant field experience includes Cambodia, DR Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, Rep. Guinea, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Myanmar, Philippines, Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka, East Timor and Viet Nam.

Having spent the early part of his career developing multi-disciplinary intervention strategies to respond to the needs of vulnerable populations in complex environments and other situations of instability, since 2003 he has been working to proactively to build the collective understanding of risk so as to build the resilience of societies, systems and individuals now and in the future. With non-linear change a reality, his work is revisiting critical assumptions of the relationship between past and future risk so as to enhance understanding of the dynamic relationship between human behaviour and choice with systemic risks.

He has extensive experience in supporting intergovernmental process, navigating political agenda, and has an extensive track record in building partnerships, whether with community members, public institutions at all scales, or global policy change agents, business and industry. He completed undergraduate and postgraduate studies in business, French and water resources management, and has written and presented on public investment and international policy for risk management.

Keynote speech

Chair: Dr Bayes Ahmed

Dr Bayes Ahmed is Lecturer in Risk and Disaster Science in the UCL Institute for Risk and Disaster Reduction.

In conversation: The Rt Hon Hilary Benn MP

Chair: Christopher Gunness

Christopher Gunness is an award-winning journalist. He previously served as the spokesperson for the UN peace-keeping force in the Balkans and the chief spokesperson for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East. He worked for the BBC as a producer, reporter, foreign correspondent and news anchor for 23 years. 

The Rt Hon Hilary Benn MP

Hilary is the Labour Member of Parliament for Leeds Central. Previously, he served as International Development Secretary, as a Minister in the Home Office, as Secretary of State at the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, as the Shadow Leader of the House of Commons, the Shadow Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government and the Shadow Foreign Secretary. He was elected Chair of the Exiting the European Union Select Committee in October 2016.Hilary’s Background

Hilary was born in London in 1953 to Tony and Caroline Benn. He attended Holland Park Comprehensive School and Sussex University. A former President of Ealing Acton Constituency Labour Party, he was elected to Ealing Borough Council in 1979 at the age of 25, becoming Chair of the Education Committee in 1986. He served as Deputy Leader of the Labour Group for nine years and was Deputy Leader of the Council from 1986-1990. In 1988 he was elected Chair of the Association of London Authorities Education Committee. He was also a member of the Association of Metropolitan Authorities Education Committee and the Labour Party’s Education Forum.

Labour and the Trade Unions

In 1980, while a Research Officer with the Association of Scientific, Technical and Management Staffs, Hilary was seconded to the Labour Party to act as Joint Secretary to the finance panel of the Labour Party Commission of Inquiry.

In 1982, at the age of 29, he was selected as Labour prospective parliamentary candidate for the constituency of Ealing North, which he contested in the 1983 and 1987 General Elections.

In 1993, he was appointed as Head of Research at Manufacturing, Science, Finance – Britain’s fifth largest trade union – and in 1996 was promoted to the post of Head of Policy and Communications. He represented MSF on the Labour Party’s National Policy Forum, was an elected member of the Party’s Environment Policy Commission and a member of the Labour Party into Power Taskforce on party democracy. He also gave evidence to the Nolan Committee on Standards in Public Life.

From 1994 to 1999, he was Chair of the Management Committee of Unions 21 – the trade union think tank.

Work as a Special Adviser

Following Labour’s 1997 General Election victory, Hilary was appointed as special adviser to the Rt Hon David Blunkett MP, then Secretary of State for Education and Employment. His responsibilities included lifelong learning, and he was closely involved in the drafting of the Learning Age green paper and the Learning to Succeed White Paper. He was also instrumental in setting up the highly-successful Union Learning Fund

Into Parliament as MP for Leeds Central

In June 1999, he was elected as Member of Parliament for Leeds Central, succeeding the late Derek Fatchett. Hilary has established a reputation as a hard-working and approachable MP who fights hard for his constituents. He does regular advice surgeries and supports a number of local community organisations. He is a Patron of Caring Together in Woodhouse and Little London, Holbeck Elderly Aid, St Vincent Support Centre, the First Floor Project, Leeds Development Education Centre, Hunslet Hawks RLFC, the Ciaran Bingham Foundation Trust, Arts@ Trinity, Rosebank Millennium Green, Friends of PHAB, Faith Together in Leeds 11, St Luke’s Cares, STOP, Education South Africa, Leeds Groundwork and the Hamara Centre.

Ministerial Career

June 2001, Hilary was appointed as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for International Development. Between May 2002 and May 2003, he was Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Community and Custodial provision at the Home Office.

In May 2003 he was appointed as Minister of State for International Development and in October that year entered the Cabinet as Secretary of State for International Development. While at DFID, Hilary played an important part in increasing the UK’s aid budget and in winning agreement on debt relief for the poorest countries at the 2005 Gleneagles Summit. He oversaw the UK’s response to the South-East Asian Tsunami and the Pakistan earthquake, and it was his idea that resulted in the establishment of the UN central emergency relief fund which now helps the world to respond better to disasters. He also led the UK negotiating team at the 2006 Darfur peace negotiations.

Hilary was appointed to DEFRA as Secretary of State in 2007, when Gordon Brown became Prime Minister and leader of the Labour Party. At DEFRA, he helped to put the ground-breaking Climate Change Act on the statute book, and piloted the Marine and Coastal Access Act – which will protect out marine ecosystems – into law. He also created the South Downs National Park.

Following the 2010 General Election Hilary became Shadow Leader of the House of Commons before being appointed as Shadow Secretary of State for the Department of Communities and Local Government in October 2011. He was then appointed Shadow Foreign Secretary following the 2015 General Election.

In October 2016 Hilary was elected as Chair of the newly formed Exiting the European Union Committee.

IRDR PhD and MRes Research Showcase 

Full speaker details will be added as they are confirmed.

Please note this event will be filmed for promotional purposes.