The Asia Pacific Alliance for Disaster Management Sri Lanka (A-PAD SL) hosted its annual International Symposium on the 30th of August,2022, critically assessing the issues at hand in the country and highlighting positive future prospects that can be worked towards, while placing emphasis on how disaster risk reduction can be given more prominence in the process. Under the theme "Crisis in Crises: Unlocking the Power of Alliances Towards Innovative Recovery", the Symposium brought together leading figures and international experts from different sectors to engage in a constructive dialogue on cross-sectoral collaboration between the public and private sectors and how these alliances can be utilized to facilitate innovative recovery and build stronger institutions for the future.
Two panel discussions were held during the Symposium. The first Panel was titled “Revive and Reset: Resilient Recovery as a Counterbalance to Multi-Dimensional Crisis” and focused on the local context in Sri Lanka and how effectively resilient recovery can act as a counterbalance to multi-dimensional crises. The panelists who spoke during the session included Major General (Rtd) Sudantha Ranasinghe, RWP, RSP, MSc, ndu, psc - Director General, Disaster Management Centre (DMC), Mr. Rohan Amirthiah, Managing Director, Wurth Lanka (Pvt) Ltd, Mr. Suranga Ratnayake, Vice President / Chief operating Officer, Aitken Spence Travels, Dr. Megumi Kuwana, Ph.D, Associate Professor, Faculty of International Studies, Kindai University, Osaka Japan, Ms. Florian Rhiza, Network Coordination Specialist, OCHA-UNDP Connecting Business Initiative (CBi) | Geneva, Switzerland and Mr. Dhananath Fernando, Chief Operating Officer, Advocate Institute.
