 Thank you. Very warm. Good afternoon to all of you. I know that the plenary session ran a little late And so there'll be people filtering in first of all Warm welcome and this is the arena. I love the arena. Don't you like the arena? Now the idea of the arena in the old days is you're supposed to let people fight amongst each other But we are very friendly arena, but the topic in itself is so critical I really like this topic and I was really glad that the forum says can you please moderate it? My name is Annie Coe. I'm from Singapore Management University And a lot of people in this room will probably say what does the Singaporean know about disruptive times? We do have some disruption. All right train disruptions But we do and we do understand that the region is it has huge potential I think throughout the whole one day two days that you've been here a lot of you would have heard about the 600 million population the wonderful 10 countries and how they've all been trying to work towards integration But before we get to what it means to be a leader driving growth in this region I really like the idea that I have such a diverse panel in the arena And I think to be said congratulations to the forum for giving me my wish list I've asked the forum that in the panel discussions that I run there must be a sufficient number of women Do you agree that this is a wonderful diversity? Can we clap to that? We thank you so much for that and what in the world are we going to be talking about? We're going to talk about leadership and I think a resilient leader Goes a long way but it's not enough because a resilient leader who builds the system and the culture For building a resilient organization to prepare for decision-making is very critical So this is our first conversation on leadership and we have a wonderful arena of great leaders And in all you know honesty I cannot read their CVs you have copies of it And so I'm just going to introduce them by title and I'm going to make them jump in After I've introduced them to quickly set the tone What exactly does this topic about resilient leadership mean to them? And what has it got to do with the disruptions that they are seeing around them? So on my right I'm very privileged to have Mr. Manuel Aranita Rojas And from now on I'll call him Ma Yes please Wonderful That's his nickname Okay and he's the secretary of the interior and local government of the Philippines And so that's our host and I'm sure they have a lot to share with us About leadership in disruptive times Next to him our wonderful friend, my friend Melody Meyer She's the president of Chevron Asia Pacific Exploration and Production Company Chevron Corporation based in Singapore now But if you read her profile she's been to all the dangerous countries of the world So we definitely will hear from her very shortly And then opposite me we have Alain Ashlaman And that's the last time I'm going to pronounce your last name Okay and Alain is the head of operations in East Asia, South Asia and the Pacific For the International Committee of the Red Cross Geneva And of course the Red Cross is very inclusive And they looked after the last privilege And they are definitely multi-stakeholders perspective So leadership within the Red Cross Leadership in the countries that the Red Cross have presence And next to Alain is our wonderful friend We have Kyong-Wa Kang And Kyong-Wa is the assistant secretary general For humanitarian affairs and deputy emergency relief coordinator What a mouthful Kyong-Wa But the nice part is you deal with emergency and you relieve the emergency We hope so And with the United Nations So Kyong-Wa again comes from a very broad perspective And of course I thought it would be nice to finish the final voice On this arena with Jeff Riddle And Jeff holds the title of being a member of the Global Executive Committee And regional chairman of Asia Pacific Middle East and Africa For Zurich Insurance Group based in Hong Kong Not much disruption there like Singapore But completely understanding that the environment is changing So can we quickly jump in? Ma, can we start with you When you are invited to this little conversation What are the big thoughts that hit you about this topic? Well thank you very much and welcome to all of you to my country Over the last two generations Disruptiveness was a constant description of my country We were referred to nicely by economists as event rich Or full of exogenous events But really what they were referring to What they were referring to were man-made calamities of a political sort Martial law Riots, political clashes Disruptions in business Sudden reversals in policy And so on and so forth And all of these exogenous events collectively Made us to be described as the sick man of Asia While all of our neighbors were galloping off at 7, 8, 9% growth in the 80s and 90s We were muddling along at a much lesser rate 4, 5% if that More recently over the last four years We have had a series of natural calamities We had in 2010 or 2011 the huge typhoon that was called Habagat I will use all our local names of Habagat And then followed by Sendong Followed by Pablo Followed by Yolanda recently And just to make it a little bit more personal I recall shortly after one Christmas The president and I were having a quiet chat And he would say My god, it's been three Christmases already And each Christmas thousands have died And what are we in government for But to try and address this sort of uncertainty in people's lives And that in a very real way is what the natural calamities as a disruptive event is To us in government under President Kieron But notwithstanding these events And other calamities President mentioned it upstairs The earthquake Some one guy and so on and so forth We've been able to overcome this And not only have we been able to overcome this over the last four years We've been able to help four and a half million families Daily by giving them part this CCT conditional cash transfer We've been able to ensure millions of families with health insurance We've been able to provide growth opportunity stability Such that it might be meaningless to the average Filipino But in the international community We have now attained investment grade from what was a junk bond status We have interest rates now that are a two three percent Versus historically nine ten percent Imagine your business is having to have that interest rate burden of nine ten percent for decades We are in short cash positive and in fact Are able to make our way both from a foreign exchange point of view As well as from a budget deficit point of view And I consider this development this positive development as the product of another kind of disruption This disruption happened in 2010 when We as a people elected an honest man as president And with that with that leadership with his what we call the Ang Matuid or straight road program His entire team his entire government And the Filipino people all together were able to write on our ship point us in the positive direction We were able to break this mold of Doing things just the way they were in the past We were we were able to destroy this notion of go along to get along of business as usual And to use the president's phraseology We were able to reject this kick the can down the road mentality, which is well If I if I solve just a little bit of it, it won't be my problem. It'll be my successor's problem And and these these have enabled us to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps So so we are where we are and maybe this is one one of the accoutrements of success We're able to host the world economic forum here now in may of 2014 Four years after the president was elected I think the key element here is that The resource was always there and that was the Filipino people Except that they were shackled and burdened by a corrupt government corrupt leaders And I and I say this also to include myself an elite that was perhaps more interested in protecting their own interest as opposed to the broader interest And now we have a situation where there is this virtuous cycle And and hopefully that can continue into the future. So disruptiveness You know, I remember at the turn of the century in 2000. This was an often Made prediction of change at an accelerated pace would be the feature of the coming millennium And and I then paraphrased by saying be careful what you predict. You might just get it and and that's what we have and Perhaps I can leave for later on discussion some other elements of of of why we I think we've been able to overcome this But I just wanted to put in perspective what this disruptiveness notion is in real terms from from a people who has who have struggled for generations And now finds their rightful place In in the world very good. Thank you. So actually we are very encouraged because the words I'm hearing from here is values based leadership And that in fact you can build resilience, but with the right leadership. I'm going to turn to you malady Exploration for oil integrated energy company And you've been places in the world like ten gears kajas tan Papua New Guinea You really love adventure I do Tell us your piece on this We work in many wonderful countries of the world including the philippines and throughout asia pacific and some Areas that are prone to natural natural disasters, but as far as our decision making I want to talk a little bit about the way that we manage risk and and Make decisions in in the face of a lot of uncertainty and risk and also how we're prepared to not only Manage but respond and have very good business continuity In a disruptive world. So just to you know kind of frame our Of course, we know energy underpins economic growth and it enables a transition of millions of people into the middle class And by 2030 asia is going to be the largest consumer of crude oil and natural gas in the world Driven by this growing middle class. So we know how important energy is to the region There's a strong common interest in promoting general energy security across the region and we think by by having good energy security in the region it does actually promote Less disruption. I mean there will be less disruption with more energy security So the world is fortunate that this region or the world fortunate that this region of the world is has Abundant supplies of natural resources oil natural gas Geothermal renewables coal and all of those will support the growth in this region, which is really good We think all forms of energy are needed particularly natural gas and natural gas obviously goes into Generating power and reliable power is very very important for communities to have little disruption basically So um chevron has experienced this firsthand We're the largest domestic producer of natural gas in thailand and mangledesh And we know that we keep the lights on and we keep business open for business And when there's a disruption and that of course, it's um, it's a challenge for the communities So having reliable secure supply of energy resources will really play an important part So you feel instability of the region the sense of responsibility, right? But to but to achieve that long-term investment. We have some very specific processes that we use in our company to assess risk and manage risk So they're the processes that we put in place many years ago to look at Just a a range of You know issues such as stakeholder management Technical risk subsurface risk cost and schedule delay Um and all of these all of our energy developments and our reliable energy are in areas that are prone to natural disaster So in addition to operating in those environments, we Use a lot of tools around emergency management emergency response many many of the tools that countries use to to harden their facilities and Be prepared for emergency response and disasters. So the key to emergency response is always first prevention So we focus heavily on prevention with our processes and then it's to be prepared To respond and to focus heavily on business continuity Now business continuity for us means not only responding to the emergency ourselves because we live and work in the communities in which we operate So we have to get our own families and our employees and our business partners You know after an earthquake or after a hurricane after a typhoon or after a natural disaster We have to get our employees able to respond to Their families lives But then we have a high accountability and responsibility to get energy supplies back on Because we know that the energy supplies is what helps the rest of the communities rebuild So we have kind of a two-pronged effort and to be in a position to do that It's a lot of emergency response planning we do a lot of drills a lot of processes A lot of systems in place so that we're very very well prepared to do that So, you know, we have the you know, once I'd be in a producer of oil and gas and and actually we're keeping economies and communities running is an important Role that we play not to have any disruption that would cause the disruption there But then we also have the the disruptions to our business that we manage through very Very detailed processes that we've used for many many years Just to push you a little bit then we go on to Alan How many people are there involved in this whole Chevron exercise that you have to look after Well in in the asia-pacific region in my region There are 12,000 employees across our our countries and all are very Very well trained in safety Responding to emergencies drills and preparedness good and and they take you know Just one other comment about that is that our employees that that Train a lot in those processes that you know business hardening resiliency Safety they take that home So we take it home to our families and to the communities in which we work and and live so We'll talk about how you prepare 12,000 people later. Think about that Alan Thank you very much for the invitation also. Thank you very much for the Philippine hospitality really enjoy a lot I mean for for for me and and my organization is clear that instability and problems I would sell our daily our daily work and With our specificity to to work as an emergency actor mainly in conflict scenarios An ability to rapid deployment Uh, we we are facing now a lot of challenges and I think that the world today is really marked by Improvisability, I think that uh one year ago. Nobody could Anticipate what is happening in uh, Ukraine? I mean the situation in Middle East Also and sale and so we have really to to adapt to this new world and I would say to have a huge faculty of of Creativity and also of reactiveness in parallel. We have also a duty and commitment to support and strengths strengthen the capacities of national societies of the Red Cross and Red Cushion to act And also to work with a with a federation And this means that the Red Cross movement is working throughout the spectrum of crisis this option from Madman disaster to to natural disaster Combining local and international response and offering a large spectrum of Of services and expertise might be some words about disruptions because it's clear that I mean Asia is region of Impressive growth a lot of Successes in many respects And at the same time it's a very diversified region and We spoke a lot and we will continue to speak about natural disasters, but it's clear that we have much much It's much broader. We have a lot of Traditional and non-traditional security issues armed conflict and In violence in several countries We have fragility tension related to political religious and ethnic dimension territorial and maritime dispute terrorist acts Etc. I would like my be to to to to mention or stress Two issues which are of concern. It is the strong and in some parts in some countries increased nationalism And also increased inequalities and this I think might be issues to to discuss a bit later and words also about the fact that Most disruption at such as such are not unexpected The problem is mainly with a low likelihood of some of them and the high impact phenomena What is give us an example? What do you mean by high impact but low probability? Just one of the examples if you take for example armed conflict between It's a time between Cambodia and Thailand. I think we did not expect this. It was a low probability, but it happened when you have Ayan, I mean Yolanda Magnitude of this typhoon. I don't think that anybody expected it. So it's this element, but we knew that it was coming And and yet you knew it was coming and we could not have preventive measures I mean a lot of preventive measures were taken, but it wasn't definitely not enough also in relation to the to the magnitude of the of the typhoon And how do you prepare leadership for that? It's preparedness at Also at at community level with with the national societies with the volunteers. I mean they are a worldwide 30 million Active volunteers. So we have 12,000 in chevron and you have 30 million Volunteers of the recursion in my organization. We are for Of 14,000 right. So good. So 30 million at a voluntary level. Yes, and the national societies So my follow-up question later will be about how do you prepare the organization and the community? Thank you very much. Any just to build up one I said we Both belong to the larger humanitarian community But my organization is the coordinator the small linchpin that holds together humanitarian action when these huge disruptions have and we're talking about really big big disruptions That are that are that are disasters That are conflict related mass displacement And so it's basically our business our business is to respond to huge prices that are the results of natural disasters Or conflict related disasters. Yeah, give us an example of this small linchpins Coordination means bringing together all humanitarian actors So that our actions are well coordinated and there's no gaps left and there's a minimum repetition Everybody knows that this coordination is absolutely necessary But the willingness to be coordinated Is is not always there. So it's it's a difficult job But it's the the un general assembly in 1991 said this is absolutely necessary For the humanitarian community to be effective. So they created This office that is now a part of the un secretariat But works with the larger humanitarian community which involves the un agencies But also the icrc ifrc and and the national humanitarian act I mean the civil society NGO humanitarian actors Because the nature of our work is basically responding to these huge crisis The idea of Resilience building Sometimes doesn't immediately register our risk Analysis and risk management But even the humanitarian community now see that this is absolutely necessary because As we all predict these huge mega weather events that lead to crisis Will will repeat themselves. It's not if it's when And this area is particularly prone to these mega disasters And the humanitarian simply do not have the ability to deal Respond With the traditional ways of doing things with just the traditional actors doing things So very happy to come to weff and see that there's a great deal of willingness And readiness and already good practices of private sector actors Getting in on the humanitarian Side of things. So I think you know this multi-sectoral partnership To prepare for and also to respond to crisis Is is really the future and I think that's the humanitarian Discourse is really heading in that direction. But what does that mean for the organization is Perhaps something that we want to get into now or I can That's a real you know a thought piece that triggers a lot of issues in my mind. Very good We'll come back to that Jeff you understand risk, right? They all tell you that they have plenty of risk You actually would say Zurich insurance would be in the right place at the right time Absolutely, yeah, you know, we've talked about micro and macro Um, I think we've also got to talk about internal and external So we take on other people's risks But at the same time we have to make sure we're resilient ourselves and able to deal With the commitments that we've made to the people we take those contracts from That's a process that's become much more sophisticated and Has been enhanced continually over the years. So we now talk about risk-based capital We talk about modeling. We work with regulators to go through stress tests We do scenario planning Stuff that many insurers were doing themselves But is now being pushed on us On a consistent basis worldwide At the same time we're looking at how we deal with other people's disruptions Now that can be a simple issue of Somebody's house burning down and what do we do to help them Individually in that situation providing accommodation for them helping them buy Um, do the repairs to the house helping them buy The products that they need to refill what they've lost Or it can be a much more macro issue of dealing with A major weather crisis as we've talked about but And at these crises come in these disruptions come from many places Nobody's talked about cyber risk at the moment. Nobody's talked about how we build Bigger interdependencies on ourselves as we build smart grids We saw the major power outages that we had in italy and the us A few years ago the smart grids are trying to deal with those but at the same time they They can smooth that but if they collapse it's far worse than what we had before so as societies Got cleverer it does create Potential disruption which is much larger than we had in the past And I could go through pandemics and how travel has changed the whole planning for those what I really want to Get to is that the disruptive effects Of all sorts are much greater Than there being we have to prepare by going through scenario planning We have to go through and learn from every event that happens and we have to try and share that around our customer base other insurers working with government so We're in a fast evolving world of understanding our interdependencies better And we're also becoming more dependent on all those players sharing with each other I could go on and on but that's uh So I have not actually bounced this off with all of you before this conversation, but it suddenly occurred to me Why don't we take a fictitious case? Why don't we take a case study since I'm a professor? So let's bounce off this case study Hypothetical we are all worried about middle eastern respiratory syndrome MERS And that's like Low Probability, but it would have great impact. We are all very connected here in a sian travel and tourism is a big thing Everybody travels to her So from a national point of view if there is a case of MERS In philippines, what would be the response? Ma what is funny that you mentioned MERS? because uh over the last maybe Month or two months ago We found ourselves in the middle of the night going to the department of health trying to track down these passengers that have come in Who were tested in the Middle East as positive? But once having arrived here We're finally tracked down, but then tested negative knock on wood From a philippines point of view, this is a real risk Uh, we have two million expatriate philippines servicing the needs of the Middle East Uh, Saudi Arabia, Dubai, etc We have 10 wide body jambos coming in every day mostly filled with vacationing or returning philippines from the area Uh, and and once they arrived and they go to our 7 000 islands and and uh It's quite difficult to find them Um, so it's for us. It's a real risk. Um, we as you know this MERS Covirus is a Phenomenon over the last three or four years only not much is known The the symptoms is also not quite you could be asymptomatic and yet be Contagious, I mean you can contaminate people Um, so so far, uh, our preparations have been One to try and ensure That whatever is the Reason for coming home to include. I'm not feeling well That the philippine consulates In the area of origin are sort of more alert so that they prevent the person from boarding Second better coordination So that what they know at point of origin we sort of can still Catch them in this in this sieve or in this trough As they come out of the airport um And then third, uh, which is more long term To make sure that Each person as they leave this is through the office of overseas philippines That there is somebody responsible that we can have contact numbers and Addresses for the families here Aside from that it's really just strengthening the general capacity of our healthcare system to be able to to address The event if in fact it it does happen, but so far I find it uncomfortable that I keep saying knock on wood, but basically, you know, it's it's a it's a little bit It's a lot of that that that we haven't had a positive case as yet Good, and the although your title says you looked after the interior You've just mentioned four to five different agencies and ministries The interior is pretty is pretty much All encompassing From the police to fire and and I also have the infrastructure that goes to the village level So if the department of health is looking for somebody I would be the natural Sort of infrastructure to go and find them or or if People are hardheaded and don't want to be confined and it would be my infrastructure or my department's infrastructure that would sort of forcibly Extricate them from the community and bring them to isolation if necessary good our whole melody first on this one How would the humanitarian and the Red Cross respond? Well, I think the health risks health disaster risks Is is is an area that's very much Planned for with the who in the lead We just have this recent announcement from the who putting travel restrictions on these countries Where the polio outbreak has been a serious challenge Such as pakistan and once that is declared there is then you know Intense discussion between the who and the the national authorities to how to implement that travel restriction So I think health disease these are are the protocols are there and and The murals the newness of the disease is always a challenge But I think in terms of the steps to take to contain that is something that is quite well elaborated What then what would be the worst case disruptions that you really wouldn't like to look at? Well, I think you know this mega natural disaster such as yolanda has been a huge challenge an overwhelming challenge both to the national authorities as well as the international actors, but we always Talked about filipina as being one of the best prepared countries in the world when it came to natural disasters because there's so much of it practice Yeah, so a practice we have about 20 to 25 Such typhoons not of yolanda magnitude You have a system of preparedness That is very well elaborated and very well Synchronized with the international architecture so that it is very easy for the international players to come in And plug in to the national system In support of the national authorities and this was exactly what happened in yolanda And there I think yolanda's experience has will be talked about for many years to come both here in this region and for us Because there are many good lessons also, you know, you know Yeah You know act, you know that steps that need to be to be revised and improved but overall The stories are so rich coming out of yolanda Um, but you ask about what does it mean to be that lynchpin if I can I give you an exact She had an extreme example Yeah, um, for example, I was in the drc The congo in the eastern region where these armed Elements insurgencies continued to happen last year the story was the m23 They have given up their arms and now being reintegrated into the government forces But there was a time when the m23 has again attacked this town called goma and You know triggered thousands of new displacements and these displaced people were spontaneously gathering in this empty public slot And so, you know a transit site had to be quickly put together You know literally overnight and I just happened to be there when this was happening And this in this small area that doesn't look like any larger than a school yard Thousands of people just mingling and on appearance it looks absolutely chaotic But if you look at closer, there are humanitarian actors icrc msf All doing their things and this young Coordinator and ochre staff was there with three phones in our hands answering calls, you know Calling the local authorities And also calling the m23 commanders Because it is the the the humanitarian actors need that access to both state and non-state actors to be able to To be able to bring assistance to populations whether they're under government control or You know non-state armed actors control So the coordination was in the hands of this young lady holding three Three cell phones To bring about some sense of order and to make sure that what was needed, you know the toilets being set up Medical clinics being set up and so on and so forth At some point she got a phone call and then in very fast French that I could understand so I asked What was that about and she said well somebody called because she's you know They need a jackhammer to put up the tents So it can get as ad hoc And and real as that But this is this is emergency humanitarian response as as real as it gets very good And how do you get them trained? How does this young lady know how to coordinate? We have a series of training programs to make people you know to prepare people for this kind of thing But that's the work, but your other question. How do you keep the resilience of the organization? To be able to do these kinds of things. It's a real challenge because You know donors don't think of humanitarian organizations Anything beyond the emergency response. So it's very difficult to get The funding support to do Organizational building that needs to be done to have staff to prepare for these kinds of things. So that's a constant challenge But it's it's you know You know to make sure that your staff are not burned out to make sure that take the rest that they need They make sure that they get the training that they need and to get Funding support for that is is is an everyday challenge I just wanted to to talk about the the the coordinator in Yolanda because I was at ground zero The day the evening before Yolanda arrived The second time national defense and myself we went ahead to sort of Make sure that all that could be done Would in fact be done But I recall that the coordinator the un coordinator Ocha was very very helpful working with our social welfare department working with us the police working with the national defense for their armed forces with the Trucks to bring in the food and so they play the key role in ensuring that Every organization every acronym. I mean every let multi-lettered acronym organization in the world Would have some place that they could Have some information and get some coordination as to what areas were still unserved and what else they could do and so And so forth. So that's a clear example from from the Yolanda very good And I guess when you're in a disaster, you know, everybody wanted to help But sometimes there's too much help and you need to bring that in order I I like to open up to the floor. I know that you can't wait to jump in on Merse. You want to say something about Merse? Okay, can we open up to the floor because we only have about 20 minutes and I know that there's a burning issue here Do you have questions from the floor? If the mic is going around Oh, you yes, please introduce yourself and thank you, honey. My name is Andrew Thomas. I'm with Ogilvy and Mather So we work with a lot of a lot of companies In crisis often For the the panel that are here The the advent of social media has arguably removed the option for leaders not to communicate in a crisis But when you talk about resilience of leadership How do you find that leaders in today's world are actually stepping up to the challenge of really being resilient in their communication? And as an organization actually being accommodating of The the challenge that that leader may be going through and not looking for it for a scapegoat at that time Melody do you want to respond to that? Sure. No, you know with today's social media Any incident the world is in the news instantly and we all know that and I think being prepared for that It's also as important as being prepared for the incident and so part of you know, I talked about a very strong systematic process that we use in our company to prepare for One prevent and then prepare for emergency response Part of that is communications and we we not only do we drill Crisis management we we drill on pandemics and using your example of a pandemic Just to share what we would do is we have health professionals all over the world and as we see A pandemic potential will start escalating that we'll start communicating with all of our employees will We'll raise the threat levels if it comes up. We'll start talking about it in serious We know how to quarantine. We know where people are, but we also know how to We drill the communication. So as we drill on crisis communication, we also talk about You know the how quickly we could get information how quickly we get it out into the news You know, what kind of either media that we use whether it's social media or if it's spoken Media in a country always in in the country language is important simple some of our incidents or some of our Operations are technical and it's important to not be technical. It's important to be very very clear about the communication so we we practice that just as we practice emergency response and I think it's important to do that because News travels so quickly these days and it's important to communicate right Would you do the same thing? Yeah, I think There's something that's not been talked about which is if you want to be resilient you have to look at the players so You can't put non resilient people in jobs when they're going to be under pressure You've got to look at the resilience you're for your partners and who you work with So resilience comes from an assembly of a lot of pieces You talked about the communication over there One of the things that we know is you've got to hold people back from trying to say things When they desperately want to that's part of the practice you're talking about melody, but it's also Making sure they don't Create additional problems that they don't talk ahead of what they know That they don't exhaust themselves by focusing on Communication when they also need to balance with other decisions that need to be made So balance is always a critical part understanding In advance who all the critical players are and understanding their resilience in advance Is very important and we spend a lot of time Choosing the members of our crisis committees and making sure that the Balance of the behaviors in those are going to work properly. So it's not just Go through we need these functions there. You've got to look at the mix of people going into those crisis committees How do you do resilient training? We do And I think That's the easiest question you've asked the only way you do it is by going through scenarios And practicing it, but those are textbook scenarios No, I don't uh, I mean that's it's that good enough But you don't do a set textbook scenario you bring changes into it You disrupt people throughout if you don't disrupt the way people are working through A Scenario planning exercise through a work through exercise. They're not going to learn anything from it at all It's got to be disruptive. Is that enough? You know, I started in this activity 27 years ago So at that time I would say we were learning by doing and it's clear that there is a lot of progress and now We have courses on stress and security for example stresses on leadership management And then you you you throw them Yes, you throw them and also you you see how they react For example, if I take a yarn and it was the same with with Pablo one year before It happens in november or december and then you have a rainy season And I mean the people had to work in incredible difficult situation for example in uh For for Pablo our people for one month were sleeping in tents and working in in tents And at the same time and to come back to the to the question about social media, you have Yes, I mean beneficiaries. They look at what you are doing. It's not only the good you do but also the good you look at And this is an additional pressure and I think it's it's good as such And so we developed also beneficiary communication for example recently we we distributed cash in in in in a yarn affected areas and we Opened a hotline that beneficiaries can also Comment, I mean if there was something not going well and like this we can also react very quickly in case there are any Issues, but I think it's we are in in a changing world and also working practices are changing But I'm training and support you can give to your staff are really key elements Good. I think this point about communication is very important. I think uh, you know, of course Absolutely factual Without exaggeration, but without under, you know Understating the challenge and setting the narrative early After disaster happens is is very important and this is a key part of our Work as the information management Entity along with the coordination role, but for staff You know, it's staff stress counselors Are a very important part of our organization And it's not just the stress that comes with this very very demanding job, but humanitarian workers In you know, very difficult situations are sometimes targeted And become collateral damage in violent situations. So they themselves Go through these traumatic experiences And how do you then help them to recover from that? And and and get back to normal to it's it's a it's a challenge and uh, I don't think we have it I don't think you could ever perfect that kind of a challenge the responses, but We've we've made huge progress Good just yes, could you have a mic here? Hi, my name is k kim. I'm a global shaper from the soul hub Since we're at the world economic forum I'd like to raise the question around international coordination in terms of disaster and risk situations Like are there given protocols or like a threshold for the international community to step into a local problem? I guess it's a lot well thought through in terms of developing nations where lots of disasters happen When it comes to developed nation, I guess it's lesser thought through like for instance in the case of japan And also like recently in korea There was a big ferry accident where 300 people died And there was problems around like the manuals were not there. We're not really well prepared So how does an international community think about these disasters happening all over the world? Went to step in and how Great question. It was supposed to be my last question. So you asked it for me. Thank you Well, the basic principle of international humanitarian assistance is uh at the request of the national authorities and so If the national authorities the capacity inside the country is sufficient And it works and there is no need There is no need for us to go in But if that's not enough and the national authorities call for international assistance We go in And in the case of yolanda the the request was really immediate and and rightly so because I think the enormity of the challenge was just Overwhelming for for all of us. So it is really at the request of the national authorities So a lot of these disasters We don't go in because The local actors the government plus the local authorities and the and the national chapters of red crests and red crests societies Do excellent work But you're really talking about really big crisis situations when the international community represented by the un humanitarian agencies go in But once we go in there is a series of protocols that all of us adhere to To maximize what we're able to bring to the ground and I think that was the case in yolanda But every crisis Has lessons learned and we are learning a lot from the yolanda response Yes, he would like and I might a shot follow up. Thank you So I guess when it happens like that's the protocol But like what before like what can we do to prevent it? For instance a country can think that they're prepared and they have all the manuals ready But sometimes that's not the case then can the international community kind of you know help monitor their manuals Help them to manage the protocols and monitor them so that they give them advice About you know, are you guys ready fully? Are you sure like can we help? Is there some kind of a method to do that as well? Yeah, I think reinforcing that same question. Yeah, please use the mic You know because uh, you are yes. My name is kumar ks kumar Right. I'm just thinking about the same thing that you know young men was talking about How do you institutionalize and how do you bring in the best practice? How do you Create some kind of a form and dissolve force But how do you create uh, also some amount of a disaster recovery management institute or some place? You know in in philippines for example, and and you know and really you know Look at institutionalizing documenting Processizing and also getting more of volunteer agencies to come and join as required And even a lot of young people other people who wants to become volunteers How do you get them ready to come and join this? So I'm just some and how do you make the investments for doing that? Just want to think about Jeff I think just was signaling to me. So I let him try What one of my concerns with this We're in the discussion is going at the moment is it's all dealing with post event And actually there's a lot lot more work needed to be done pre event to mitigate Before it happens you half touched on that when you say, how do we evaluate preparedness? um, the reality is It's not easy to do and we get anecdotal Input more than scientific. We're doing work at the moment. Um my own company with a bunch of academic institutions To start getting a method where we can evaluate how ready Individual countries and even segments of countries are to deal with catastrophic flood and It it's actually quite a complex process, but we're now able to evaluate Or we've got the tools we've now got to implement it to evaluate where individual countries are We've not been able to do that before and I think That is a critical piece when you get into the evaluation and so on and I'd go back The professionals are the people here on what you do post event and how you coordinate it But there's just not nearly enough investment going into the pre event. Let me give you a good indicator of that And one publication that we did called saving lives today and tomorrow Which really underscores the need for preparedness and resilience Of all the over, you know Development assistance of the past how many years only 0.4 percent of that went to preparedness projects Yes, since this is the car When it is so clear that for every dollar spent on preparedness you save three four five seven 10 dollars on response So there's an intellectual Gap is that there's a mismatch between The need for preparedness work and the whole structure of of financing Whether it's national governments or international Donor partnership And and I think that's just a clear clear Indicator where we're far from our rhetorical commitment to the preparedness work and where we put our money But I think, you know, all preparedness is I think it is You can't ever expect it to be complete. For example in the seawall of ferry accident I was there on my leave in the in korea when that happened And I can't even begin to describe what a horrific tragedy there was that still lingers But, you know, it's clearly there was a very blank spot To korea's preparedness for this disaster, so I'm just wondering ma you have almost like four You know Experiences yolanda's the worst and I thought his point was perfect, you know, wouldn't there be a Depository where filipines will teach people how to manage an equivalent Well, that that sort of connected to what I was going to respond when you were asking about how do you make Organizations where people resilient send them over to the filipines after a little bit of time. They'll be resilient Especially around december But having having said that I think that I think that The theoretical desired outcome is also must be matched with the reality on the ground. I'll give you an example We are visited by 20 25 storms every year Except that these storms take a typical path For pablo sendung yolanda This path was not of that pattern. It looks like the past. So not withstanding alerts The president coming on interrupting The national tv during soap opera, you know when everybody's watching interrupting broadcasting and saying This is serious. This is one of a kind. This is I mean never been done in our country's history On the ground after the fuck when you ask them, well, why did you not leave? I don't know what that storm surge is. I we've never the storm does not come Our way, you know, so and that's the reality on the ground and and Or Well, who will guard my meager possessions? I'm a farmer. I'm a farmer or I'm a fisherman Subsistence fisherman doing coastal fishing and he doesn't want to leave his whatever he's hot, you know, maybe The family is Is able to leave but there's always one member of the family that that stays behind or there's really um an inability to grasp what you know Miles per hour or kilometers per hour or whatever The the technical description of the storm may be but but You know people learn by experience and and now when when our weather bureau says possibility of surge then you see really people moving and behaving A different I mean, it's you know, we lost More than 6,000 people for yola for hyan yolanda About a million roughly a million homes were either partially or totally destroyed It was just it was just a humongous effort and and and challenge imagine no power no Water no light no communication no cell phone nothing for three four days before the president could even have a sense of how That how large a devastation was We had to go through a convoluted army sort of radio over over our system To to get to manila to say this is really of tremendous proportions uh, but but again Having said that you see a situation where The whole country responds and the international community responds and and we were able to feed And and and to have every day all of these sort of convoys of food going out from all sorts of UN world food organization everybody from domestic local, etc Except that really the devastation was As was described by Allah and it low probability high High impact. I mean, I think it's the world's worst storm. So who would have thought that? You know, if it was the usual signal number two signal number three, you know, it's no sweat for us, but this was really Of tremendous proportions good melody. Just a couple comments. I mean, I think that the As far as making a systematic process or I think there's four areas you have to look at one is prevention That's all about hardening facilities building codes Practicing evacuations practicing communications drilling and then looking back on those to see did they work or not? The next one is preparedness, you know, when the storm is coming are people prepared? Do they have I lived in the the Gulf Coast Gulf of Mexico my whole life and I was managing our offshore operation during hurricane Katrina in the Gulf of Mexico so that I guess is america's hurricane clients very Um knowledgeable on those processes, but that prevention process the preparedness process the response and then the business continuity because being able to Have processes in place for all four and then after An event occurs to to take the time to go back and say what worked well What didn't what were the learnings? How do we incorporate those into those into our processes? And then go back and drill those learnings And you know improve those communications or harden those facilities or whatever it takes So I think it's a it's a process in an in a country or in a region of the world where you're prone to that Exposure being able to systematically Do that and then share because I think that there isn't there's no There's an advantage to share everything you learn in an emergency But I think there's an issue on sharing and we need to be very careful with this It's something that we deal with in businesses taking something that works in one place and just shifting it elsewhere That doesn't necessarily work Um, you talk about uh krw Katrina They the response to that and build houses on stilts do things to mitigate It doesn't actually work the same way in poor territories So in countries where people are very poor We do see flood mitigation by the authorities saying new buildings have to be built on stilts They have concrete foundations or what happens people go and live in the space Underneath and instead of mitigating the situation We've got people who are even more exposed than they would have been before So we have to have the deep insight Of how people are going to behave before we start talking taking solutions on it can be High it can go exactly the opposite way of what you want unless you've got that local insight good And I can't take any more questions. I've got signals, but to just finish this round I'll start with you Jeff So for ASEAN what advice would you give in the state of building resilience in terms of our interconnectedness? cool You you asked me for a difficult question. Yeah, you gave me a difficult question um I think it's working at every level. I talked about the need to understand who you're dependent on there is You've got to deal with micro and macro The both of those issues can be very real for the people that are impacted by them The other thing I'm trying to reduce it to one The variation around events is becoming greater than we've seen historically And the planning has to start looking at Greater variation than has historically been the the case you can think you're desperately resilient and then you get um a Japanese Tsunami that goes over the level of the protection that was built Good I think what the point that you made at the end about really it has to be context specific and Ultimately that gets down to communicating with the communities affected I think that has to be a fundamental element of the response as well as The preparedness because in the end this is about people So people I think people putting people at the at the at the core of of all of these endeavors is key, but I I think I'm in terms of preparedness I'm I'm I'm rather optimistic because everywhere. I think there is national capacity Strengthening towards preparedness and the Hyogo framework has been instrumental in that regard everywhere we go. We see national disaster management authorities With good records of being prepared and mitigating the the the consequences Of risks materializing So that's good. There's always room for improvement and the international community the UN actors stand ready to support Whether it's technical assistance and What not and training One indication is what we have this tremendous capacity called the undock network is one of the oldest UN response tools that we have experts Immediately deployable within 24 hours when disaster strikes But increasingly we are we are getting requests for undock to come and train Not to come and assess crisis After it happened So I think that's an indication that there's greater emphasis being put on on preparedness As we also respond to crisis as they happen. Good. And that's wonder train corporate leaders and political leaders I'm sure if they wish to be a part of that Why not good Alan I mean the first element is a political will and I mean I'm very impressed by also the decision We have this evening because I mean it's very very open and I mean the Filipino authorities are very aware of the need of prevention preparedness and all all this element and I think there is a keen Will to to look at what happened and to improve for example Now we are in discussion with different authorities to to see how Mortar remains were managed because there were some some issues in particular in Tacloban And we are in discussion with Minister of Health with the National Bureau of Investigation and they're really looking at adopting some best practices which are Really adapted to to to local conditions. Then I would say strengthen the legal framework We know that I mean the Philippines are also working on it But it means also adopting some some national laws or regulation on different different issues promoting the law education And when I say promoting the law I also in mind international matter and law And then it's also implementing And ensuring the respect of the law and then I would say look also the needs of the less favorized populations because it's clear that A concern we have after all this Mega disasters is that there will be people Reminding behind and this I think is really important to to look at and promoting cooperation I think this is a key element we see now that The civil society's business And other actors are very involved and it's really to see how Everybody can can cooperate and and do the do the best And my final word might be would be also to look at strengthening regional system as a asian human human committee Committee for human assistance That I think should also be be strengthened Based on the experiences. Thank you Melody last word for our corporate leaders yet Okay, so just a few summary comments around decision making with uncertainty And I think it's just really important for countries companies communities to have very clear processes around understanding risks Assessing risk mitigating risk dealing with uncertainty Teaching people how to manage that uncertainty is very important. So very clear processes around that that are clear well understood You know within a company. It's important to have that we deal with a lot of risks, but in The focus ought to be on prevention always Putting safeguards in place to mitigate risks is extremely important and when those safeguards are in place It's really important to spend time teaching people how to validate and verify that they're in place and working Because you know we can we can write it on paper. We can put it in a process But you you have to go out into the community or into your operation and validate and verify that it's actually there And it actually is working so that prevention is important and Failing, you know the focus on prevention is important But also being prepared or having processes for preparedness emergency response and business continuity And I can't focus enough on the fact that you know when you're in a disaster prone area You plan it's not it's not if it's one or you know, it's not if it will happen It's when just as you said so you have to get people in the mindset and when this happens What will I do? You know, so it's after the event as well You can prepare per plan and prepare mitigate But what do I do in after to make sure that my family and my community is safe and and my business can resume Good. You have the last word. We started with you. You have the last word. You've got the most experience Thank you for that. I want to make three points First relative to uh, learning and best practice and Building up resiliency. Well, I would take on the offers that were made directly or indirectly By the international community. I think that we really need a distanced view Not from in country because that will be very much colored by by where you sit or what Organization you represent but so really from a from a distance view a a sort of an after action Sort of study or report as to how we could have done better and what other lessons could be learned now If that is to be shared and we'd be happy to to do that. No, that's that's the first point I want to make the second point is speaking of uh Resiliency I'd like to um as as mentioned by mr. Riddle. It's really just building a resilient team And I'd like to take this opportunity to introduce other fellow resilient people but disruptors as well In our in our community. We have here the deputy speaker of our house of representatives at dina abad We have here the uh, president's spokesperson Secretary la sierda and then the secretary of budget and management put Put your bod so I mean it's it's really a team effort everybody working together We had we had them packing food packets and arranging for transport and so on and so forth All across this side not just for high annual yolanda, but for all the other Calamities that that we've had so it's really building that team and and having the leadership Of the president as we were as we were As as we had at that time And then the last point that I want to make is again just to thank you for coming to my country We we we welcome you and I hope you enjoy the rest of the stay We're very glad we've always been an open people And and we're very glad to host you to learn from you and to have you as our friends and fellow partners in Developing our country. Thank you very much for that great and on that note. Thank you very much for being part of our conversation Just in time for the cultural story Thank you Thank you. Thank you very much