Combining business resilience with sustainable development during COVID-19
The Asian Disaster Preparedness Center (ADPC) through its Asian Preparedness Partnership (APP) program hosted a webinar on 'Resilience in the Private Sector - Amplifying the Sustainable Development' to address the impact of COVID-19 and disasters on businesses.
A total 558 users and 390 unique online viewers attended the webinar focused on how resilience must be an inherent aspect of addressing the impact of COVID-19 and other disasters on businesses and society in order to amplify the growth and achievement of UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
The webinar was organized by the APP Regional Technical Working Group on ‘Advancing the Private Sector Engagement in Disaster Risk Management’ and the iPrepare Business Facility of ADPC. It is the second in a series of webinars focusing on local and regional impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Ms. Gayani de Alwis, Global Chairperson at Women in Logistics and Transport (WILAT), Immediate Past Chairperson at Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport Sri Lanka, Founding Chairperson & Advisor at WILAT Sri Lanka, and Board Member of Women’s Chamber of Industry and Commerce in Sri Lanka, elaborated that the motivation behind WILAT was the low participation and unfriendly attitude towards females in the logistics and transport sector.
She explained the formation of a global community to raise awareness regarding COVID-19, “We had experts from around the world and it started with those who had tackled the measures of the lockdown early on. They shed light on mentally preparing yourself and managing stress when working in confined spaces while managing your day to day operations. We managed our understanding to share best practices,” she said.
A question & answer session with the panelists concluded the webinar. Overall, the webinar reiterated that understanding the primary risk and developing the capacity to adapt to any kind of disruptive event is essential in building the resilience of businesses.
Enabling policy support, gender considerations, partnerships with the government, and collaboration with all the concerned stakeholders including the communities are imperative to optimize resilient practices in the business sector.
Watch a video of the full webinar below: