CIGS Seminar："Catastrophic Disasters: Confronting Novel Preparedness Challenges"

Presentations
Dr. Howitt's presentationPDF：2.6MB
Mr. Kurihara's presentationPDF：1.5MB

Seminar's outline
Title： "Catastrophic Disasters: Confronting Novel Preparedness Challenges"
Presenter： Dr. Arnold M. Howitt (Executive Director, Ash Center in Harvard Kennedy School)
Moderator： Jun Kurihara, CIGS Research Director

Seminar's abstruct
Emergency preparedness in most countries concentrates on risks that can be "anticipated" because of direct experience, events elsewhere, formal risk analyses, or scenario development. But how can society more effectively prepare for "novel" threats or events that either have not been seen before (e.g., emergent infectious disease, undiscovered seismic faults), or arise at a scale that far exceeds expectations (Hurricane Katrina, the March 11 earthquake/tsunami), or involve simultaneous disasters that together pose novel challenges (earthquake, tsunami, nuclear accident)?

Presenter's introduction

Dr. Arnold M. Howitt is Executive Director of the Roy and Lila Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation at HKS, with responsibility for its executive education and research programs. He also co-directs the Program on Crisis Leadership, jointly sponsored by the Ash Center and the Taubman Center for State and Local Government.

As a faculty member, Dr. Howitt works extensively in executive education for senior officials. He chairs or co-chairs Leadership in Crises, Leadership for New State Health Directors, and co-founded and has taught in Crisis Leadership for Higher Education and the National Preparedness Leadership Initiative. He has also been deeply involved in executive education programs for China, serving as faculty chair of China Crisis Management and co-chair of the Shanghai Executive Public Management and Chinas Leaders in Development programs.