VIRTUAL EVENT: UCL IRDR 10th Annual Conference: COVID-19 Pandemic – A Global Perspective

In the media, there is a ghoulish comparison of International death rates caused by the Coronavirus pandemics that translates into moral judgements on governments, countries and peoples. The UK is judged to have done particularly badly. Death rates amongst the elderly in care homes has been shocking. But ethnic minorities have also been disproportionally impacted. There is an important gender perspective too as women disproportionately have shouldered caring and home-schooling responsibilities. But there has been little real analysis or international comparison beyond the simplistic headlines. To open up a proper debate the IRDR has assembled an international panel with knowledge about the crisis from the UK, Italy, China, Nepal, and Bangladesh.

In particular, the panel will review how the pandemic has impacted countries differently around the world including the UK, Italy, China, Nepal, and Bangladesh which have all imposed lockdowns to varying degrees but with different outcomes. The panel will try to address: 

Has a ‘command and control’ disaster management response been effective?
How have women been impacted? Is the pandemic a major set-back for women’s equality?
Minorities in the UK have been disproportionately impacted. How have these played out in other countries?
What different approaches have been taken to shielding vulnerable communities, and elderly in care homes in particular?

Professor Peter Sammonds is Director of the UCL Institute for Risk and Disaster Reduction and Professor of Geophysics. He works at the interface of natural and social sciences. His research and knowledge exchange is on natural hazard risks, disasters and recovery and he has worked on earthquake mechanics, volcanoes and ice physics in the Arctic. He works on research council, British Academy and Royal Society-funded projects on Increasing Resilience to Environmental Hazards in Border Conflict Zones and Resilience Futures for the Rohingya Refugees. He has advised the UK research councils on the increasing resilience to natural hazards programme; been a member of EEFIT Earthquake Engineering Field Investigation teams, contributing to inter-disciplinary reports on disaster, taken up widely by government for policy advice; and been a Commissioner on the UCL–Lancet Commission on Migration and Health, 2017–18, whose report has been influential. He is currently the Gender and Intersectionality Ambassador for the UKRI network+ Gender Responsive Resilience & Intersectionality in Policy and Practice (GRRIPP) project led by the IRDR Centre for Gender and Disaster.

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 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 eight 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 is Lecturer in Humanitarian Studies and Co-director of the IRDR Centre for Gender and Disaster. She is also the Co-Investigator for the UKRI Collective Fund award Gender Responsive Resilience and Intersectionality in Policy and Practice (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. 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, Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) region, and Nepal.

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. 

Dr Bayes Ahmed is Lecturer in Risk and Disaster Science in the UCL Institute for Risk and Disaster Reduction. His background includes research into the field of disaster risk reduction (DRR), conflict and migration, climate change adaptation, community vulnerability and resilience, and climate justice. He works in the intersection between conflict and disaster with a vision to help improving the living standards of forced migrants and stateless population. He teaches quantitative and qualitative research methods, application of geographic information system (GIS) and remote sensing in disaster science, risk-sensitive land use planning, and landslides. He is passionate about working with grass-root people to understand their disaster vulnerabilities and producing effective policy recommendations to address their problems. He dreams of a world full of peace, prosperity and happiness.

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.

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 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. Mr Benn was born in London in 1953 to Tony and Caroline Benn. He attended Holland Park Comprehensive School and Sussex University. He served as Deputy Leader of the Labour Group for nine years and was Deputy Leader of the Council from 1986-1990. He was also a member of the Association of Metropolitan Authorities Education Committee and the Labour Party’s Education Forum. June 2001, He 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. Following the 2010 General Election, Mr Benn 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 he was elected as Chair of the newly formed Exiting the European Union Committee..

Online pre-recorded video presentations on disaster risk reduction research projects of incredible breadth and diversity from around the world.