Working Session on
Preparing for Disaster-Induced Relocation
Date and Time: Monday 16 March, 2015. 14:00-15:30
Venue:Hagi Hall, Sendai International Conference Center
Unofficial Speaker Bios
Lieutenant General(R) Nadeem Ahmed
Former Chairman, National Disaster Management Authority,
Former Dy. Chairman, Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority
Islamabad. Retired Pakistan Army Three-Star General credited with planning and coordinating the relief and reconstruction efforts after the devastating earthquake of October 2005. Following the relief phase, appointed Deputy Chairman of Pakistan’s Earthquake Reconstruction & Rehabilitation Authority (ERRA). In May 2010, appointed as the Chairman of the National Disaster Management Authority(NDMA), where he managed the 2010 Pakistan floods, as well as the responses to the Hunza landslide and Attabad Lake crisis, and the Air blue crash.
Ms. Elena Correa
Ms. Elena Correa, a Colombian, is a former World Bank staff, she is a psychologist and a specialist on social impact assessment and the management of development project. She worked extensively on developing guidance for the relocation of populations at risk of disasters.
Professor Walter Kaelin
Professor Kälin acts as the Envoy of the Chairmanship of the Nansen Initiative by providing strategic guidance and input to advocate with governments for the adoption of a consensual approach to protect the displaced. He served as a member of the UN Human Rights Committee until the end of 2014. From 2004 until 2010, Professor Kälin was the Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General on Internally Displaced Persons. In the 1990s, he was the Special Rapporteur of the former United Nations Human Rights Commission on the situation of human rights in Iraqi occupied Kuwait. Professor Kälin contributes actively to the displacement debates through his various publications such as the most recent one, The Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement and the Search for a Universal Framework for the Protection of Internally Displaced Persons.
Undersecretary Alexander Pama, Executive Director, National Disaster Risk Management Council and Administrator, Office of Civil Defense
Former Navy Chief Admiral Alexander Pama was appointed by President Aquino to take on the role as the Executive Director for the National Disaster Risk Management Council (NDRRMC). Since then, Mr. Pama has been heading the multi-sector efforts of the NDRRMC member agencies to respond to the impacts of the super typhoon that has affected more than 3 million families of which approximately 200,000 will need to be relocated. Learning from Yolanda, Mr. Pama has been promoting the paradigm, shift from reactive response to assuring better understanding and analysis of risk by approving the Pre-Disaster Risk Assessment framework in order to clarify the protocol to be applied by government disaster managers.
Ambassador William Lacy Swing
From of the United States is now on his second five-year term as Director General of the International Organization for Migration (IOM). He was re-elected on 14 June 2013 by IOM’s governing body to the post that he has held since October 2008. From May 2003 till January 2008, as UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General (SRSG) for the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Ambassador Swing successfully led all facets of the largest UN peacekeeping operation in history. Prior to his work in the DRC, Ambassador Swing served from 2001 to 2003 as the Special Representative to the Secretary-General for Western Sahara and Chief of Mission for the UN Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO).
During a long diplomatic career at the US Department of State, Mr. Swing was a six-time ambassador, managing some of the largest diplomatic missions and foreign development and humanitarian aid programmes in two hemispheres, with a record of strengthening bilateral relationships.
Through his diplomatic assignments in countries facing significant migration movements, he has acquired a deep understanding of the multiple factors affecting international migration.
Ambassador Swing graduated from Catawba College in North Carolina (Bachelor of Arts) and Yale University (Bachelor of Divinity), and did post-graduate studies at Tubingen University in Germany and at Harvard University. He speaks fluent French and German
Ms. SanjulaWeerasinghe
Ms. SanjulaWeerasinghe is an Australian-qualifiedattorney and a research associate at Georgetown University’s Institute for the Study of International Migration. Georgetown University has been working on planned relocation in the context of disasters and climate change in close cooperation with UNHCR and Brookings Institution.