Nobel Peace Prize winner, Dr. Nguyen Huu Ninh, was a keynote speaker during the  ‘Information Sharing for Crisis Resiliency’ workshop on July 10th at the Waikiki Beach Marriot Resort in Honolulu. 

As a keynote speaker of the workshop, Dr. Ninh discussed how Vietnam and many other countries of the Asia-Pacific region face a multitude of obstacles created by the rapid transformation of their economic, social, and environmental systems and resources.  Taking a multidisciplinary approach, Dr. Ninh identified factors influencing social vulnerability and resilience to environmental change, specifically how Vietnam and other coastal nations can respond to effects of global warming such as typhoons, floods, and sea level rise.  He highlighted various organizational principles that can be implemented in political, legal, scientific and financial frameworks in order to mitigate and manage disaster risks such as multi-level networks and adaptive governance.  His book, Living with Environmental Change: Social Vulnerability, Adaptation and Resilience in Vietnam, expands on these issues.

Dr. Ninh is the Director of the Centre for Environment Research Education and Development in Vietnam, an organization that carries out strategies for environmental conservation and sustainable socio-economic development in cooperation with other organizations, both domestic and international.

More than 60 participants of  the ‘Information-Sharing for Crisis Resiliency – Beyond Response and Recovery’ workshop July 9 at the Marriott Resort Beach Hotel in Waikiki. Co-hosted by the Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies, the Center for Excellence in Disaster Management and Humanitarian Assistance (COE-DMHA), and the Pacific Disaster Center (PDC), the workshop brought together national crisis managers from 25 Asia-Pacific nations, along with representatives from US interagency crisis management centers and various Non-Governmental Organizations.

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