Resilient Solutions

Strengthening collaboration in a

time of change

27 & 28 June 2017, 9am – 5pm

Resilient Solutions:

Strengthening collaboration in a time of change

Panellists and Moderators

TUESDAY 28 JUNE, 2017

09:30-10:15 Keynote address

Professor Rosalind Cornforth is Director of the Walker institute at the

University of Reading. As Professor of Climate and Development, Rosalind

Cornforth generates interdisciplinary research to carry out risk-taking, innovative

and novel research to tackle the complexity of the global challenges facing

society. She is a leading innovator in knowledge exchange & multi-stakeholder

engagement for user-orientated solutions and set up the African Climate

Exchange (AfClix) in 2011 to facilitate such interactions in Africa.

She has 15 years experience collaborating with iNGOs, African Institutes, Met

Services & Governments. Rosalind is also Senior Research Scientist at the

National Centre for Atmospheric Science (Climate Directorate) and the

Department of Meteorology and an Ambassador for TAMSAT

(Tropical Applications of Meteorology using SATellite data and ground-based

observations). Rosalind’s research interests include improving understanding of

the fundamental dynamics of African weather systems.

10:20-11:00 How the humanitarian system is transforming to enhance

resilience

Camilla Knox-Peebles joined Oxfam in 2007. As Deputy Humanitarian

Director, she oversees the Global Humanitarian Team's work on local capacity

building and our emergency programmes in the Horn, East and Central Africa

and Asia. Camilla has contributed to numerous articles on food security issues

and to the development of improved toolkits including WFP's Emergency Food

Security Assessment (EFSA) and the Emergency Market and Mapping and

Analysis.

Camilla has around 20 years experience and has worked as a consultant to the

UN World Food Programme, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the

United Nations, the UK Department for International Development and other

International NGOs such as Save the Children. Camilla holds a BA in Social

Anthropology with Indonesian Studies from SOAS and an MSC in International

Health.

Resilient Solutions

Strengthening collaboration in a

time of change

27 & 28 June 2017, 9am – 5pm

10:20-11:00 Urban development: how the concept of resilience helps and

hinders

Arabella Fraser is a Research Fellow at the Overseas Development Institute

(ODI). Arabella specialises in urban climate adaptation and resilience, with a

particular focus on the politics and governance of risk and vulnerability

reduction. She holds a PhD from the London School of Economics on the

governance of adaptation in informal, urban settlements and has worked over

15 years for a range of international development NGOs, think tanks,

governments and international agencies, including the World Bank,

International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) and Oxfam.

Her current research focuses on the use of climate science in urban

adaptation policy-making, the governance of small-scale but high local-impact

disasters and approaches to risk reduction in informal, urban settlements. She

is also Lead Editor for a forthcoming Special Issue of the International Journal

of Disaster Risk Reduction on Africa’s Urban Risk and Resilience.

Richard Friend is a Lecturer in Human Geography at the University of York.

Richard joined the Environment Department in 2016. He has a background in

social anthropology and development studies, with a PhD from the University

of Bath (UK). The main focus of his work has been on the poverty and

governance dimensions of social and environmental transformations,

particularly around fisheries, water resources, urbanization and climate

change. His most recent writing has focused on governance, rights and

poverty dimensions of urban climate resilience theory and practice in Asia.

Richard has a longstanding interest in scientific and indigenous knowledge,

and the role of citizen science in driving social change. He has over twenty-five

years experience working in Asia – Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar,

Vietnam, Bangladesh, India and Nepal. He speaks Thai fluently and is

proficient in Lao.

Richard has managed two programmes on urban climate resilience – the

USAID-funded Mekong Building Climate Resilient Asian Cities (M-BRACE)

that works in four second tier cities in Thailand and Vietnam, and the regional

and Thai components of the Rockefeller Foundation Asian Cities Climate

Change Resilience Network (ACCCRN). He acted as lead for the UNDP 2011

Human Development Report for Cambodia on climate change and rural

livelihoods, also responsible for a sustained process of multi-stakeholder

dialogue and consultation. His policy-oriented research has addressed diverse

development challenges including natural resource management, public

administration reforms and decentralization, as well as child labour and

education.

Resilient Solutions

Strengthening collaboration in a

time of change

27 & 28 June 2017, 9am – 5pm

11:30-13:00 Resilience and transformations

John Colvin is the Director of the Emerald Network and a Principle at the

Global Climate Adaptation Partnership. John is a freelance consultant and

researcher in integrated and adaptive approaches to sustainable development.

His expertise is in social and institutional learning processes, including

monitoring and evaluation, particularly in the context of climate change

adaptation, water resources governance, ecosystem services, sustainable

livelihoods and sustainable urban development.

A former UK policy maker, John has over 12 years experience of working in

international development for a variety of organisations including bilaterals,

government ministries NGOs, research institutes and NGOs. A specific area of

expertise is in participatory processes underpinning knowledge brokerage,

systemic intermediation and inter & trans-disciplinary research practices. John

has worked in China, Colombia, Ethiopia, Kenya, India, Italy, Jamaica, Japan,

Nepal, Pakistan, South Africa, Tanzania and the UK.

Ronald Wesso is the Research and Policy Lead at Oxfam South Africa. He

started his activism in the movement against apartheid as a high school

student and subsequently as a trade unionist and community activist. He has

worked as an activist researcher for the last eleven years. His research focus is

land and agrarian studies, and before that, democracy and public power. His

broad interest is in crafting research processes that support struggles for

progressive social change. He has written on service delivery struggles, land

reform and farm labour issues. He has been involved in various initiatives to

build autonomous movements of the poor. Ronald is also interested in

understanding and supporting feminism.

Some of the organisations he has been associated with include Surplus People

Project, International Labour Research and Information Group and Feminist

Alternatives.

Lisa Horrocks is principle Climate Resilience Consultant at Mott Macdonald,

providing thought leadership, business development and project advisory in the

company-wide climate resilience initiative. Lisa has 15 years of professional

experience in the climate sector, focusing on climate change impacts and

adaptation policy since 2004. Previously, Lisa led the climate change

adaptation team at Ricardo Energy & Environment. She provided oversight and

technical quality assurance across Ricardo’s climate resilience and adaptation

portfolio, and led strategy and business development in this area.

Lisa is originally from an academic research background in the earth and

atmospheric sciences. For her PhD, Lisa developed new ways to monitor

gases from active volcanoes, and then spent 3 years as a climate research

scientist at the UK Met Office.

Resilient Solutions

Strengthening collaboration in a

time of change

27 & 28 June 2017, 9am – 5pm

Nick Brooks is Director of Garama 3C Ltd, a consultancy firm specialising in

climate change and international development. Before setting up Garama, Nick

worked in academia (from 1999 to 2005), and then as an independent climate

change consultant. Nick’s consultancy clients included UNDP, the World Bank,

DFID, the African Development Bank and other bodies. Nick is heavily involved

in the delivery of training in adaptation, mainstreaming and adaptation M&E

and has a special interest in Africa, and in 'transformational' adaptation.

Today, as Director of Garama, Nick works mostly on adaptation in developing

country contexts, particularly focusing on mainstreaming and the Monitoring

and Evaluation (M&E) of adaptation interventions, and particularly how we can

move beyond the measurement of outputs and spending to truly assess the

effectiveness of adaptation. In addition to his consultancy work, Nick also

conducts research into past climatic changes, their impacts on human

societies, and adaptation to severe and abrupt climatic and environmental

change. This work involves collaboration with colleagues from a wide range of

fields, including palaeoclimatology, geomorphology, archaeology and

anthropology. Since 2002, Nick has been Co-Director of the Western Sahara

Project, under which geoarchaeological fieldwork is conducted in the disputed,

non-self governing territory of Western Sahara. He previously participated in

similar work in southwestern Libya, on the Fezzan Project.

Eva Ludi is a Senior Research Fellow at the Overseas Development Institute

(ODI). A geographer with a diverse project portfolio, Eva has done extensive

research on the socio-economic dimensions of sustainable rural development

and sustainable natural resource management and on sustainable soil and

land management in the Ethiopian Highlands, East Africa and Central Asia.

She has also conducted research on environmental conflicts and on reconciling

nature protection and rural development in protected areas.

She has over fifteen years of experience in research and policy with a special

focus on Ethiopia and other East African countries particularly related to

sustainable rural development and sustainable natural resource management,

having previously worked at the Centre for Development and Environment,

Bern University, Switzerland. Eva is also a member of the Water Policy

Programme (WPP).

14:30-15:45 Perspectives on Social Protection and Resilience

CLARE O’BRIEN is a senior consultant and project manager in Poverty and

Social Protection. She provides technical assistance to the design,

implementation, monitoring and evaluation of social protection programmes.

She also carries out evaluations and data analysis in the wider social sector.

Clare's recent assignments have focused on supporting governments to

develop national social protection policies (e.g. Côte d'Ivoire, Congo-

Brazzaville, Moldova), estimating the costs of social assistance programmes

(Kenya, Kazakhstan, Malawi) and conducting quantitative and/or qualitative

impact evaluations and reviews of cash transfers and social care services

(Kazakhstan, Tajikistan).

Resilient Solutions

Strengthening collaboration in a

time of change

27 & 28 June 2017, 9am – 5pm

Her expertise in poverty monitoring includes the analysis of public expenditure

tracking surveys, service delivery surveys and household surveys (e.g.

Rwanda, Bangladesh). Clare has a Masters in Environment and Development

from the University of Cambridge. She speaks French and Russian, and works

particularly in sub-Saharan Africa and CIS countries.

Stephen Kidd is Senior Social Policy Specialist at Development Pathways. For

the past 25 years, Stephen has worked as a consultant and adviser on social

development and social protection. He is a member of AusAID’s Social

Protection Expert Panel – providing cover for AusAID’s Senior Social Protection

Adviser in July and August 2012 – and has previously worked for DFID as a

Senior Social Development Adviser, including leading its Social Protection and

Equity and Rights policy teams, and as Director of Policy and Communications

at HelpAge International.

Stephen has engaged extensively on social protection in Africa, Asia, the

Pacific and Latin America where he has supported work on policy, research and

good practice in implementation. His experience ranges from advisory support

to the development of national strategies on social protection in Rwanda,

Uganda, Nepal, Indonesia, and Papua New Guinea, leading the design of

social transfer schemes in Uganda, Lao PDR, Bangladesh and Nepal,

undertaking reviews of social transfer programmes in Kenya, Ghana and Fiji,

research on social protection in Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Malawi, Kiribati, Fiji

and the Pacific, and teaching on social protection on the Cape Town and

Chiang Mai “Design of Social Transfer programmes” course as well as on a

range of more specialised training courses in, for example, Uganda, Tanzania,

Nepal, Barbados, United Kingdom, Australia, and the Netherlands.

No photo Arjen Sterk is an economist (Erasmus University Rotterdam) and is since 2011

with Mott MacDonald. Arjen has over 25 years of professional experience in

social development. Currently (since January 2015) he is project director of a

DFID-funded social protection project in Rwanda (social protection for the

poorest) and a Dutch-funded higher education project in Yemen (since 2012).

He was project director for the DFID-funded project on spot checks and

beneficiary feedback under the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) in

Pakistan (2013-2016) and a Planning Commission/World Bank assignment in

Pakistan in 2015 to develop a national social protection framework. He was, in

the context of the EU Food Security Programme, from 2002 until July 2011

team leader of a social safety net programme – including an education

conditional cash transfer component - in Yemen. Before that he worked on

long-term assignments for the UN, i.e. IFAD (Rome) and FAO (Nepal and

Thailand).

No photo Montserrat Pantaleoni works for the European Commission ECHO B.1

Directorate-General for European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid

Operations, Policy development and regional strategy I.

Resilient Solutions

Strengthening collaboration in a

time of change

27 & 28 June 2017, 9am – 5pm

14:30-15:45 Perspectives on Water and Sanitation and resilience

Jola Miziniak is Oxfam’s WASH Governance Adviser implementing Oxfam’s

strategy in long-term water and sanitation programming, as well as supporting

countries in their WASH and water resources management programming

linked to policy.

Jola has over 10 years’ experience in Africa, Asia, Middle East and LAC with

various UN and INGO’s in both humanitarian and development sectors

particularly focusing on WASH in areas of protracted crisis.

Ken Caplan is the founder and director of Partnerships in Practice (PiP) which

provides advisory, research and training services to strengthen partnership

approaches for sustainable development. The core of its expertise has been

formed through years of work with partnerships in the water, sanitation and

hygiene (WASH) sector. Beyond working with a wide range of partnerships

from the global to the local levels, Ken has developed a range of research

programmes with related publications. These have built on analysis he has

conducted on diverse WASH contexts in the developing world, from water

provision through public private partnerships in Buenos Aires and Jakarta, to

public toilet provision in Ghana, to a political economy analysis of sanitation

services in Brazil (for the World Bank / WSP in conjunction with Oxford Policy

Management (OPM)).

Ken previously worked for 8 years in South-east Asia, including rural Thailand,

Bangkok and Vietnam and has more recently conducted analysis of

partnership modalities in Cambodia with the Ministry of Interior and the World

Bank. Ken is also a Senior Associate of the University of Cambridge

Programme for Sustainability Leadership, serving as tutor or faculty member

on both open and tailored courses for senior officials from the World Bank and

other organisations.

Rob Hope is an Associate Professor at the School of Geography and the

Environment and Director of the Water Programme at the Smith School of

Enterprise and the Environment, University of Oxford. He is a development

economist with expertise in water economics and development policy. His work

applies economic theory and techniques in the measurement, design and

evaluation of policies and interventions which promote improved environmental

and social outcomes. This includes theoretical advances in behavioural

economics and social choice theory, methodological progress in

interdisciplinary water research, and leadership in establishing Oxford's cross-

department research group working on 'Smart Water Systems'.

He is Director of the REACH: Improving water security for the poor programme

(DFID, 2015-2022) and the Groundwater Risk Management for Growth and

Development project (NERC/ESRC/DFID, 2015-19). He also leads

ESRC/DFID and UNICEF grants.

Resilient Solutions

Strengthening collaboration in a

time of change

27 & 28 June 2017, 9am – 5pm

Vincent Casey is a Senior WASH Advisor at WaterAid.

16.00 – 17.15 Synthesis and Wrap –up

Caroline focuses on how innovative economic models can deliver more just

and resilient development. She heads the Economic Justice team in Oxfam,

which works across agricultural and urban contexts, promoting approaches that

prioritise more resilient development, women's economic empowerment,

inclusive markets, and tackle root causes of inequality.

Caroline has worked on markets, business models and investment approaches

that deliver social impact for many years in different roles with challenge funds,

impact investors, entrepreneurs and policy makers. Over three decades in

development she has pioneered new approaches to business 'impact', multi-

stakeholder partnerships, sustainable livelihoods, pro-poor tourism, pro-poor

value chain analysis, and sustainable equitable resource use. She was

previously Research Fellow at the Overseas Development Institute, a

Resource Economist in the Namibian Government, owner of her own company,

worked in the UK Parliament and US Congress, has lived and worked in

several countries in Africa and Asia, and has done consultancy work for a host

of bilateral and multilateral organisations and INGOs. She is Editor of The

Practitioner Hub for Inclusive Business and advisor to a number of international

programmes.

WEDNESDAY 28 JUNE, 2017

09:30-10:15 Co-creating knowledge for resilient development: how can

researchers and practitioners better work together for development impact?

Irene Guijt leads Oxfam GB's Research Team, which uses evidence to

influence economic, environmental, and social justice. Her core areas of

interest are complexity of systemic change for social justice, how sense-

making informs action, citizen's voice influence on policy and practice and

narratives as evidence and the metrics of regenerative food systems. Prior

to joining Oxfam GB Irene worked for 25 years in rural development,

natural resource management, collective action and social justice. She is a

keen advocate for making the less heard voices more audible and

influential. Irene has pushed debates on the politics of evidence as co-

convenor of the Big Push Forward, including co-editing the book The

Politics of Evidence and Results.

Recent work includes pioneering the SenseMaker® stories-at-scale

approach in international development for (impact) evaluation in East

Africa, Latin America and Asia on issues including girls' empowerment,

inclusive business, accountable democracy, water service delivery, and

Resilient Solutions

Strengthening collaboration in a

time of change

27 & 28 June 2017, 9am – 5pm

youth leadership. Irene worked at the International Institute for Environment

and Development from 1990 to 1998. She was a Visiting Fellow at the

Australian National University between 1996 -1998 and 2013-2015.

Maarten van Aalst is Director of the Red Cross Crescent Climate Centre.

Involved with the Climate Centre since 2006, Maarten coordinates our

support to climate risk management across the Red Cross Red Crescent

Movement, and links with scientific and policy communities on climate

change, disaster risk management and development planning. Maarten

was Coordinating Lead Author for the IPCC special report on extremes and

a Lead Author for the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report.

He holds adjunct appointments at the International Research Institute for

Climate and Society at Columbia University, and at the Department of

Science, Technology, Engineering and Public Policy at University College

London. Since completing a PhD in atmospheric science, Maarten has

also worked on climate change adaptation and disaster risk management

with organisations such as the World Bank, several regional development

banks, OECD, UNDP and several governments.

Rebecca Nadin is Head of Programme in the ODI’s Risk & Resilience

programme. She has more than 14 years’ government and consultancy

experience in China and Asia, specialising in designing and managing

multi-stakeholder initiatives in sustainable development and climate

change; leading climate risk and vulnerability analysis and policy

formulation at national and sectoral level; and analysis of China’s emerging

geopolitical strategy and socioeconomic priorities.

Before joining ODI, Rebecca was Director of the Adapting to Climate

Change in China Project (ACCC Phase I and II), the largest climate risk

policy project of its kind in China. Previously, Rebecca worked in the British

Embassy Beijing’s political section, covering VIP visits, Japan-China

relations, Central Asia and energy security. She served as the Deputy

Director of the British Council’s Global Sustainability Programme, leading

roll out in 60 countries. She was also the British Council’s China Director,

Climate Change & Science, leading the UK’s Climate Change Public

Diplomacy Campaign in China. Rebecca is the founder of PLAN8 Risk

Consulting, a start-up that specialises in helping clients to manage climate

and political risk, and a platform for women in the field of science and social

science to showcase their leadership potential. She is an adjunct lecturer at

the Centre for Environment & Population Health, Griffith University

Australia.

Resilient Solutions

Strengthening collaboration in a

time of change

27 & 28 June 2017, 9am – 5pm

Eloise Meller is the Senior Policy Manger of the Global Challenges

Research Fund (GCRF) for Research Councils UK.

11:30-12:15 Learning lab: Partnerships - How to make effective partnerships

for sustainable development.

. Ken Caplan is the founder and director of Partnerships in Practice (PiP) which provides advisory, research and training services to strengthen partnership approaches for sustainable development. The core of its expertise has been formed through years of work with partnerships in the water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) sector.

11:30-12:15 Learning lab: Pathways to Impact

Daniel Morchain is a Global Advisor on Climate Change Adaptation,

Resilience and Agriculture in the Resilience and Climate Adaptation Unit at

Oxfam GB. Daniel has worked with local authorities, and smallholder farmers in

developing and implementing strategies to adapt to climate change. Daniel is a

co-principal investigator for the ‘Adaptation at scale in semi arid regions

programme’ (ASSAR). Daniel also leads on integrating gender justice into

adaptation programmes including through the Gendered Enterprise and

Markets (GEM) initiative.

Before joining Oxfam, Daniel worked with the Stockholm Environment Institute

and with ICLEI - Local Governments for Sustainability on climate change

adaptation research and projects. Daniel has a Master's degree in Environment

Management and Policy from Lund University's International Institute for

Industrial Environment Economics (IIIEE), Sweden and has completed

postgraduate courses on resilience and climate change adaptation at the UN

University in Japan.

Resilient Solutions

Strengthening collaboration in a

time of change

27 & 28 June 2017, 9am – 5pm

12:15-13:30 Governance: what is the role of governance in resilient

development?

Stephanie de Chassey is Head of the Oxfam GB’s Gender, Governance and

Social Development Team. Stephanie has a background in marketing,

strategic planning and communication, in both the private and NGO sectors.

Before joining Oxfam GB's Programme Policy team, she consulted on

organisation development, strategic planning and governance with ActionAid

International, World Bank Institute, and some grant-maker organisations.

Stephanie has contributed to various transparency and accountability-related

projects, working directly with Information Commissions and Civil Society

groups in South Asia, as well as in the USA. In her current role, she is working

with a group of advisers on essential services, gender and governance.

Helen Jeans is the Head of the Resilience and Climate Adaptation Unit of the

Economic Justice Team of Oxfam GB. She is also co-lead of Oxfam’s

Resilience Knowledge Hub. Helen provides strategic direction to the

Resilience and Climate Adaptation Unit and its global programmes and

supports country programmes on resilience programming and climate change

adaptation, with a particular focus on governance and learning.

Helen has over 20 years experience in international development, 10 years of

which were spent in various leadership roles in the Pacific Island countries of

Solomon Islands and Kiribati. She has worked for development and

environmental NGOs and the European Commission and has degrees in Law

and Human Ecology. Helen was a co-author of Oxfam’s Framework for

Resilient Development.

Jean Boulton is a Visiting Senior Research Fellow at the University of Bath,

Visiting Fellow at Cranfield School of Management, Director of Claremont

Management Consultants Ltd., and a Fellow of the Institute of Physics and

Visiting fellow of Bristol Business School. The core theme to Jean’s research

interests is how to deal with a complex, interconnected, often fast-changing

and uncertain world.

Jean’s current interests are in considering how a complexity perspective

affects both the design and evaluation of projects and programmes and how

research methodologies can explicitly be situated within complexity ontology –

a view of the world as systemic, emergent, contingent and path-dependent.

Resilient Solutions

Strengthening collaboration in a

time of change

27 & 28 June 2017, 9am – 5pm

Malcolm Ridout is currently a Senior Adviser in the Department for

International Development (DFID). He recently concluded a secondment to

the United Nations High level Task Force on Global Food Security, focusing

on recurrent crisis and resilience. Other posts in DFID have included leading a

policy team on growth and resilience, Head of Directorate for Middle East,

Asia and Humanitarian work, leading livelihoods work for DFID in southern

Africa and policy work on social protection.

Prior to joining DFID Malcolm spent 15 years working with NGOs, running

country programmes in Africa and Asia, as well as overseeing regional

humanitarian co-ordination.

Rebecca Murphy is a researcher at The Kings College London Centre for

Integrated Research on Risk and Resilience (CIRRR) and a Resilience

Learning and Capacity Building Officer at Christian Aid. Rebecca is working

on a three year DfID funded consortia run by START Disaster Emergency

Preparedness Programme project called Linking Preparedness Resilience

and Response in Emergency Contexts (LPRR). The project is focused on

strengthening the quality and speed of humanitarian response. It aims to do

this by increasing community resilience though exploring and identifying best

methods for humanitarian response and conflict prevention programs.

Rebecca has been a researcher and consultant for the UK Met Office’s

International Development Department where she explored how to integrate

climate information systems into the newly devolved governance system of

Kenya. She also spent time as a junior researcher in Manila for the Red Cross

Climate Centre exploring methods for Disaster Risk Reduction, Climate

Change Adaptation and Environmental Management and Restoration.

14:30-15:45 Measuring Resilience

Claire Hutchings is the Head of Programme Quality for Oxfam GB. She

provides strategic leadership on Oxfam's Global Performance Framework.

She is currently leading Oxfam's efforts to test and refine a qualitative

research method known as process-tracing, exploring how to reach credible

conclusions about the contributions that Oxfam's interventions make to

outcomes around policy change and citizen engagement. Her team supports

the development of organisational systems and culture that promotes

learning, accountability and measurement of results; provides strategic

leadership and a global overview of organisational Monitoring and Evaluation

(M&E) processes; and builds capacity to carry out high quality M&E.

Prior to joining Oxfam, Claire worked in India on rights based approaches to

natural resource management, and in Western Canada with Aboriginal

Groups engaged with rights and title cases. Claire's academic background

includes undergraduate work in international development management and

political science, a Masters degree in human rights from the University of

Sussex, and training with the Independent Evaluation Group of the World

Bank in programme evaluation. Claire is a member of the American

Evaluation Association, the European Evaluation Society, and the UK

Evaluation Society.

Resilient Solutions

Strengthening collaboration in a

time of change

27 & 28 June 2017, 9am – 5pm

Chris Anderson is the Global Programme Manager - Zurich Flood Resilience

Alliance at Practical Action. The programme aims to build community

resilience to river flooding in 5 countries (of which Practical Action is working in

Peru, Nepal and Bangladesh), to generate evidence based research and to

test and develop innovative resilience measurement approaches.

Chris has a many years experience working for Oxfam, Save the Children and

other agencies on disaster risk reduction and resilience.

Robbie Gregorowski is an ITAD Principal Consultant and Evaluator with

considerable expertise in monitoring and evaluation, particularly in the

fields of Knowledge Services, Research Uptake and Evidence-informed

policy. Robbie is responsible for the designing and facilitating the M&E

system for the GDNet, the knowledge service from the Global

Development Network (GDN). He has also recently undertaken evaluations

of several knowledge networks, communities of practice, and policy

research institutions including DFID's Climate and Development

Knowledge Network (CDKN), the World Bank infoDev trust fund, and

UNISDR's disaster risk reduction (DRR) knowledge platform --

PreventionWeb. Most recently, he was asked by the Global Environment

Facility (GEF) to review the latest thinking on capacity development and

then to develop a conceptual framework for them, called Capacity

Development 2 (CD2)

Dave Wilson joined Itad in 2015 and works in the climate change theme

across two flagship DfID programmes and has 10 years of experience

designing, managing and delivering environmental and climate change

projects in the UK and overseas.

As a Senior Associate with the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF), Dave

worked on regional level DfID and IFAD on funded projects in Southeast

Asia and assisted national government agencies in the Philippines to

design appropriate policy responses to climate change impacts on

agriculture. He also has extensive field experience working in Nicaragua.

Dave has significant experience delivering multi-country research projects

including development of robust methodology protocols and monitoring and

evaluation frameworks.

Resilient Solutions

Strengthening collaboration in a

time of change

27 & 28 June 2017, 9am – 5pm

14:30-15:45 Weather Insurance and Resilience: A critical look at what the

evidence is showing us

Debbie Hillier has worked for Oxfam GB since 1999. Currently, Debbie is

working on policy aspects of the nexus of climate change and humanitarian

issues - looking at climate change aspects of humanitarian disasters and

response and with a particular focus on disaster risk reduction.

Previously Debbie worked on issues related to conflict and arms control,

including the development of UK legislation, European arms controls, and

developing and driving the Control Arms campaign, providing policy, research

and strategic advice to achieve an international Arms Trade Treaty. Debbie

has also worked in Oxfam’s Humanitarian Department responding to crises in

Africa.

Brendan Plessis is XL Catlin’s Executive Vice President for Emerging

Markets. In this role Brendan leads the development of emerging market

strategies by partnering with leaders across XL Catlin, in both Insurance and

Reinsurance.

Brendan joined XL Catlin in July 2015, previously holding a position as a

managing director at Guy Carpenter & Company, Singapore. He was the head

of multinational and retrocession business for South East Asia, South Korea,

India, China and Greater China. Prior to working at Guy Carpenter, Brendan

held various senior level positions with Willis Re Bermuda, Gallagher Re

Bermuda, IBL/Independent Management Group Bermuda and Aon Limited

UK.

Nicola Jenns is a climate and environment adviser at the UK’s Department for

International Development (DFID), where she has worked for the past 15

years on a variety of issues including climate risk insurance, weather and

climate information services, refugee policy, debt cancellation, as an adviser at

the Asian Development Bank, as well as on DFID’s bilateral programmes in

Sierra Leone, Pakistan, Haiti, Guyana and the Caribbean.

Jonathan Reeves is a policy advisor on resilience and emergencies at Action

Aid. Jonathan researches, analyses and advocates for equitable, resilient

sustainable development. In his role as policy adviser on resilience and

emergencies, his thematic scope is climate change, resilience and the

structural causes of crises. His recent and ongoing work focuses on climate

change adaptation finance; resilience and post-quake reconstruction in Nepal;

and insurance, social protection, agroecology and climate finance

for community-owned resilience-building in various developing countries.

Prior to joining ActionAid his focus areas included sustainable bioenergy;

equitable, resilient, nutrition-sensitive, sustainable food systems; and the

Sustainable Development Goals. Jonathan has held positions in the UK’s

Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the Food and Agriculture

Organisation of the United Nations, and the International Institute for

Environment and Development.

Resilient Solutions

Strengthening collaboration in a

time of change

27 & 28 June 2017, 9am – 5pm

Swenja Surminski is a Senior Research Fellow at the Grantham Research

Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, part of the London School

of Economics and Political Science (LSE). She is Programme Leader for the

‘climate risk, insurance and private sector’ work-stream at the institute,

overseeing research projects from a multi-disciplinary field. Her research

focuses on climate adaptation and disaster risk reduction with a special

interest in the role of the private sector. The geographic scope of her works

spans from the United Kingdom across the European Union to developing

countries.

Swenja is the GRI-lead in the Costing Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation

in Ireland project, in collaboration with University College Cork and funded by

the Environmental Protection Agency in Ireland. She is the PI of the new LSE

IGA/Rockefeller project ‘Insurance as a tool for financial and climate

resilience? Using innovations in subjective measures to explore how climate

insurance can improve resilience of the world’s poor’. Swenja is also part of

the DFID-funded ‘Uncertainty reduction in models for understanding

development’ (UMFULA) project, exploring insurance decision making in a

developing country context.