Davos Notes: Warner on Vietnam and the role of business in DRR

I spent the morning of last Wednesday, 'Environmental Vulnerability Day' at the conference, talking shop with a series of participants. First was the 2-hr afternoon session convened by Marilise Turnbull on "Using the Hyogo Framework in Oxfam's Humanitarian Program in Vietnam". Marilise introduced the sole presenter, Provash Mondal, the Oxfam GB lead in Vietnam. He made a nice practical presentation for some 45 mins, with some really interesting and promising material. He stated "children were the real vulnerable groups". After a couple of questions, Marilise split the 15 or so attendees into two groups, gave them discussion points, flip charts, pens, and asked each to focus on manners in which to adapt or approach this DRR program in Vietnam. It was exciting and inclusive, and several participants were very happy to actually get involved in the sessions.

The session on "The role of business in DRR" was very interesting. Convened by David Peppiatt, the outgoing head of the ProVention Consortium (going to be number 2 in the International Dept of BritCross), he presented Alyson Warhurst who gave an overview of the provocative report she had just completed, commissioned by ProVention. Each of the other 4 panelists then discussed the report and then the floor was opened for the rest of the 90 min session. Alyson stated that "97% of disaster deaths occur in developing countries", and the lack of research materials and data to make an economic case for the business role. However, her approach was "in the absence of data, use logic' and her basic tenet was that "the way forward is through partnership", and "the value case is driven by human rights". Shruti Mehrotra, an old colleague now with the World Economic Forum, stated that "the WEF believes risk reduction has a major focus for business" but difficult to articulate. Focus should be on continuity of service, business redundancy systems, and risk management; talk the talk of the person listening to make headway. Also stressed the difficulty of dealing with "non-events", i.e. business investment in prevention and preparation when no disasters actually occur. As Thomas Loster from Munich Re Foundation stated, "fire fighting is sexy, fire prevention is not". I'll leave Charlie to comment on Terry Jeggle's (UNISDR) comments about "metrics" and Ngo use of business terminology.
During questioning, Shruti mentioned that the head of the influential Carlyle Group recently stated to the WEF about risk management that "we do this to buy good will", so we are all aware at the business prerogative at making profits and appeasing shareholders. But the personal interest of CEOs also plays a large part.