The Catastrophic Flooding in Pakistan

About Speaker

Bilal Anwar is an International Climate Policy and Sustainable Development Professional with a reputation as a leading technical expert, with over two decades of diverse experience in the field of climate change.

Since 17 January 2022, Mr. Anwar has been appointed as the CEO of the National Disaster Risk Management Fund, to provide funding to government and non-government entities, in undertaking risk reduction activities, against natural calamities and climate-induced risks, to make Pakistan resilient against disasters. His core areas of technical expertise are climate action, climate finance, disaster risk management, in which he has worked extensively on designing, operationalization of Climate Investment and Disaster Management Funds for Pakistan as well as internationally. He holds extensive management expertise in Climate

Change and Carbon strategies in the corporate sector and program and operational management for donor funded based projects in several countries.

During his diverse experience in the field of climate change for over twenty years, Mr. Anwar has held a number of key positions at International Climate Change and Disaster Management institutions and assisted in mobilizing funds towards addressing its climate change and disaster related challenges.

About Speaker

Ayesha is a development and postcolonial geographer. Her core research interests are around hazard-based disasters and their intersection with politics, security and development in the Global South. In particular, her research explores questions of political space in the aftermath of disasters and uses a social contract framework to shed new light on the way disasters are lived and experienced on the margins of the postcolony.

Prior to joining the department in January 2020, Ayesha was based at the Department of Geography at Royal Holloway University of London. She has an interdisciplinary background and has done considerable work on the interface of academia and policy, most recently for the UK’s Houses of Parliament.

About Speaker

One of the mighty women on Woman’s Hour’s 2020 Our Planet Power List, Zarina previously worked at the Council for Ethnic Minority Voluntary Organisations leading the charge for increasing participation in environmentalism in Scotland. Since being told that “ethnic minorities aren’t interested in climate change”, Zarina has dedicated herself to creating pathways for under-represented groups to work in environmental organisations – increasing not only a diversity of people, but a diversity of ideas. In response to the lack of specific data about ethnic minority groups and environmentalism, Zarina is now researching sustainable behaviours within BAME communities in the UK for a PhD at the University of Manchester and is also a researcher on a Food Justice project, Just FACT in London and an advisor for Women’s Environmental Network.

Zarina has created spaces for marginalised women’s voices to be heard about climate issues, Climate Sisters who exhibit their creative work at various venues such as the Glasgow Science Centre, the Universities of Glasgow and Edinburgh. Zarina was recognised by Edinburgh Science Institute as an inspirational woman who has made a significant impact in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths and featured her along 8 other women in 2021’s festival by creating a mural of her displayed publicly in Edinburgh. More recently Zarina received the coveted Emma Goldman Award for her feminist work on climate justice and inequalities.

Zarina has a number of board positions including the Scottish Women’s Budget Group and is on the directorate team of Climate X Change.