Hear from UNDP, Rescue Global, IMC at Global Disaster Relief Summit

WASHINGTON - July 13, 2016 - PRLog -- As highlighted by the World Humanitarian Summit, conflict-related crises and natural disasters affect approximately 125 million people every year. This is equivalent to the world's 12th largest nation. Yet, only 0.4% of official development assistance was spent on disaster preparedness in 2014.

To address these challenges and to enable quicker and better response during crisis and catastrophes, Aid & International Development Forum calls upon all actors involved with delivering aid relief and resilience programmes internationally to exchange best practice and discover innovations at the Global Disaster Relief Summit 2016.

Taking place on 7-8 September in Washington D.C. at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Centre, the Summit will once again gather over 350 senior representatives from UN agencies, national and multinational disaster relief agencies, heads of military and government disaster operations, leading NGOs and global aid and development donors, relevant private sector companies, as well as academia, think tanks and research institutes.

Key themes at the Global Disaster Relief Summit 2016:

·         Emergency Procurement Strategy

Procurement is central to effective programme delivery and accounts for nearly two thirds of UNDP's spending. As the demand for procurement services is growing, Dominic Grace, Office of Sourcing and Operations, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) will provide an update on UN Procurement and share best practice and guidelines for monitoring and evaluating your procurement decisions.

·         Data Collection, GIS and Mapping
David Hartshorn, Secretary General, Global VSAT Forum works closely to aid national-, regional- and global-level policy makers as they formulate state-of-the-art satellite regulatory frameworks. David will share insights into using drones to support disaster relief operations and role of satellite-based communications in strengthening resilience and early-warning systems through information sharing.

·         Innovations and Technologies to Support Health SDGs
Janet Meyers, Deputy Director Health Policy & Practice, International Medical Corps will take part in the panel on health resilience to discuss current health threats and how those can be overcome with the use of mHealth solutions. She will highlight why reproductive and maternal child health care should be integrated into all disaster relief efforts

·         Lessons Learned from Recent Disasters
Emily Troutman, Editor, Aid.Works and David Jones, Chief Executive, Rescue Global will examine disaster response activities to recent global emergencies, like the Nepal earthquake and El Niño drought and floods, in order to identify new best practice, challenges, possible solutions and what can be done better next time.

·         Cash-Based Programmes for Disaster Relief
How to manage the transition towards digital payments? How to choose the right partners? How to decide on the right model for an emergency situation whether it is credit card, e-voucher, mobile cash transfer? Hear from Nathalie Rothschild, Associate Director, Logistics, Action Against Hunger and Alan Grundy, Emergency Response Team - Economic Recovery & Development Coordinator, International Rescue Committee.

Discover more about the influential speakers and topics lined up at the Summit, visit http://disaster-relief.aidforum.org (http://disaster-relief.aidforum.org/why-attend/agenda)

Global Disaster Relief Summit provides an unparalleled opportunity to gain practical advice from over 70 speakers on how to improve disaster response globally and benchmark your approaches with over 350 peers and explore opportunities for collaboration.

For more information, please contact Alina O'Keeffe, Marketing Manager, Aid & International Development Forum at aokeeffe@adiforum.org

Event details:

Global Disaster Relief Summit
7-8 September 2016
Ronald Reagan Building & International Trade Center, Washington D.C.