3G, disease, world trade, population, Germany, UNAIDS, Europe, NIMBYism, 21st Century, Mark Easton, Julia Unwin, future, connected Africa, USA, geoengineering, malaria, Child of our time, Japan, Russia, manufacturing

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Natural disasters
how can we do better?

BARBARASTOCKING   CEO Oxfam GB

CAMERONSINCLAIR   Architecture for Humanity

MARTINBELL   UNICEF Ambassador

The earth is a hazardous place; natural disasters will continue to happen.

But how can we improve our response to them and ensure this benefits vulnerable communities worldwide in the long-term?

Join our expert speakers, Dame Barbara Stocking, Chief Executive of Oxfam GB and Cameron Sinclair, founder of Architecture for Humanity, to explore these issues and put your questions to them.

Chair of the discussion will be Martin Bell OBE, UNICEF UK Ambassador for Humanitarian Emergencies, former broadcast war reporter and former independent politician.

Martin Bell is UNICEF UK Ambassador
for Humanitarian Emergencies

© Ian O'Reilly/BBC

CHAIR: MARTINBELL was the BBC war correspondent from 1962 to 1997, reporting from a total of eighty countries and 11 conflicts over 30 years, he covered some of the world’s most difficult and dangerous conflicts including Vietnam, Nigeria, Angola, the Arab Israeli wars, Iraq, Afghanistan, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Bosnia and Croatia.

In 1992 Martin was awarded the OBE, that same year whilst reporting from Bosnia he was severely wounded by shrapnel.

In 1997, Martin left the BBC to stand as an Independent candidate in the Tatton constituency and was successfully elected Britain’s first Independent MP in fifty years.  It was through Martin’s political role that he heard of UNICEF and in 2001 he was awarded the title UNICEF UK Ambassador for Humanitarian Emergencies and travelled to Tajikistan on the Afghan border to cover the refugee situation.

A true advocate for children around the world, Martin has travelled to many areas of conflict and natural disaster and has passionately reported on the plight of children affected in Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Iraq, Malawi, Darfur, DRC and Somalia. As the voice of robust honesty and a determined campaigner for trust in politics, the man in the white suite is often called upon for his opinion on the
state of British Politics, most recently to share his thoughts around the MPs’ expenses scandal.

 Martin Bell - UNICEF 

Dame Barbara Stocking has been
Chief Executive of Oxfam GB since 2001

SPEAKER: BARBARASTOCKING   joined Oxfam GB as Chief Executive in May 2001. Oxfam GB is a major international non-government organisation whose mission is “to work with others to overcome poverty and suffering”. Barbara has provided strong leadership within the organisation, including the Oxfam International confederation; and across the international development sector, during the last seven years. 

Since January 2008 Barbara has been Chair of the Steering Committee for Humanitarian Response (SCHR), an alliance for voluntary action of currently nine major international humanitarian organisations.

Barbara is a member of the UN Inter Agency Standing Committee for Humanitarian Action (IASC), and of the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) High Level External Committee on Millennium Development Goals. 

She was one of 75 women leaders to attend the International Women Leaders Global Security Summit in New York, in November 2007. 

In 2007, Barbara was a member of the BBC’s impartiality panel on business coverage, led by Sir Alan Budd.

Previously a member of the top management team of the National Health Service, in her eight years with the NHS, Barbara worked as regional director and then as Director of the NHS Modernisation Agency. Barbara has a Masters degree in physiology, and has broad experience of healthcare systems, policy and practice, including periods at the National Academy of Sciences in the USA and with the World Health Organisation in West Africa.

Barbara was awarded a Dame Commander of the British Empire (DBE) in the 2008 Queen’s Birthday Honours List.

Oxfam GB

SPEAKER: CAMERONSINCLAIR  was trained as an architect at the University of Westminster and at the Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London. During his studies Sinclair developed an interest in social, cultural and humanitarian design. His postgraduate thesis focused on providing shelter to New York's homeless through sustainable, transitional housing. After his studies, he moved to New York where he worked as a designer and project architect.

In 1999 Sinclair co-founded Architecture for Humanity, which seeks architectural solutions to humanitarian crises and brings design services to communities in need. Currently the organization is working in a dozen countries on projects ranging from health centers in Sub-Saharan Africa, community centers in Southeast Asia to low-income housing on the Gulf Coast of the United States. In 2007 Architecture for Humanity launched the Open Architecture Network, the worlds' first online community dedicated to improving living conditions through innovative and sustainable design.

He has spoken at a number of international business and design conferences on sustainable development and post-disaster reconstruction, including guest appearances on BBC World Service and CNN International, National Public Radio and PBS. 

In 2003 Sinclair was named a Nice Modernist by Dwell Magazine. He is a recipient of the ASID Design for Humanity award and the Lewis Mumford Award for Peace. In 2004 Fortune Magazine named him as one of the Aspen Seven, seven people changing the world for the better, and in 2006 Sinclair was named one of three winners of the TED Prize, which honors visionaries from any field who have shown they can "positively impact life on this planet." Together with co-founder Kate Stohr he accepted the 2008 Cooper-Hewitt Smithsonian National Design Patron Award in honor of the work of Architecture for Humanity, its chapters, volunteers and design fellows.

Architecture for Humanity current projects

 Cameron Sinclair TED Prize 2006      

Cameron Sinclair votes for Building a better world

The story of Architecture for Humanity

Photo by UNDP