Learning from Covid-19: Old Lessons, New Lessons - The Future Starts Now

  • 27/07/2020, 14:00:00
  • Online
  • 3 days

Welcome to the Virtual Conference

The question as to how people and organisations can become genuinely good at managing crises is not only an interesting discussion point but a critical issue in the new ‘crisis as normalcy’ world that we are moving into. Covid-19 is a powerful example (and wake-up call), but it is only one of a wide range of critical challenges that the world is facing, more than a few of which have the potential to escalate to truly existential threats.

The first responsibility is to understand what a genuine crisis looks like. Phrases such as ‘black swan’, ‘grey rhino’ and ‘wicked problems’ have become part of the lexicon used to try and describe this class of problem (which is good). However, as we have seen in multiple examples over the past months, it soon becomes clear that the vast majority of people who are using them do not understand what they mean, or their significance in terms of crisis planning and preparation (which is bad!).

Crises by their very nature are rare. They are also almost always unique, overwhelming and transcending the response plans that had been put in place to deal with them. These are not unexpected challenges – they are intrinsic to the very nature of a crisis event. If these characteristics are not present, then it is likely that the situation can be categorised as a ‘Major Incident’ (which organisations should have the capabilities to respond to) rather than a crisis (which they don’t).

DAY 1

WHAT COVID-19 HAS TAUGHT US ABOUT CRISIS MANAGEMENT

  • Lord Toby HARRIS, ISRM President and senior government national security expert
  • Dr Stephen FLYNN, Founding Director, Global Resilience Institute, Northeastern University (USA)
  • Pascal MEIGE. Director Disaster & Crisis, IFRC

DAY 2

WHAT WE NEED TO LEARN IN ORDER TO BE RESILIENT AGAINST FUTURE SHOCKS

  • Dr Robert MACFARLANE, Deputy Director, Civil Contingency Secretariat, UK Cabinet Office
  • David HOROBIN, Head of Crisis Management Cluster, Geneva Centre for Security Policy
  • General (ret.) Stanley McCHRYSTAL, CEO, McChrystal Group

DAY 3

HOW THE WORLD CAN GET READY FOR BOTH THE CHALLENGES AND THE OPPORTUNITIES IN THE POST COVID-19 NEW REALITY

  • Peter Willis, ‘Learning from Crisis’ Project Coordinator, The Resilience Shift
  • Marcus Oxley, Founding Executive Director, Global Network of Civil Society Organisations for Disaster Reduction (GNDR)
  • Dr David Alexander, Institute of Risk and Disaster Reduction, University College London
  • Dr Adel Alaraifi, Executive Director, Risk and Resilience Institute, Saudi Arabia

 

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