Advisory Group Members
Bangladesh National Action Plan on Internal Displacement
Dr. Neil Adger
Neil Adger is a Professor of Geography at the University of Exeter, UK. He is a leading social scientist working on climate change adaptation and its social, economic, health and demographic challenges and recognised as a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences, UK. He has extensive leadership experience in science in this area including service to the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and long-term collaborations with researchers in Bangladesh, South Asia, Africa and Australia
Dr. Atle Solberg
Atle Solberg is the Head of the Secretariat of the Platform on Disaster Displacement (PDD). He is a political scientist from Norway. His background is primarily from international humanitarian action and from working in the context of displacement (both in conflict and in natural hazard situations). He has worked for the UNHCR, UN OCHA the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC). He also has research and teaching experience from the University of Bergen on humanitarian issues as well as on the protection of unaccompanied minors.
Nina M. Birkelandg
Nina M. Birkeland is a Course Director on Climate Change and Forced Displacement at the Department of International Refugee Law and Migration Law. International Institute of Humanitarian Law
Dr. Bina Desai
Dr. Bina Desai oversees the organisation’s programme work, including global monitoring and reporting, the thematic research agenda, and data management and analysis. She previously worked for the German Ministry for Development, the Aga Khan Development Network, Christian Aid/DFID, and UNDRR. From 2010 to 2017 she served as UNDRR’s Policy Analyst, co-authoring and leading the production of the United Nation’s Global Assessment Reports on Disaster Risk Reduction (GAR).
She holds a PhD in Social Anthropology from the school of Oriental and African Studies in London, and MSc in Sociology and Economics, and has a strong interest in climate and disaster risk reduction, urban change and development economics. She is fluent in German and English, speaks French and basic Hindi.
Dr. Mathew Scott
Matthew Scott is a senior researcher in human rights, disasters, and displacement, and is the head of the People on the Move thematic area at the Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law in Lund, Sweden. He is the author of the monograph Climate Change, Disasters and the Refugee Convention (CUP 2020). Recent research focuses on Swedish judicial decisions on claims for international protection in the context of disasters and climate change, and law, policy, and practice relating to internal disaster displacement across Asia and the Pacific. At Lund University, he convenes the Masters-level course on human rights law, the environment, and climate change, and lectures on international refugee and human rights law. Matthew is also actively engaged in international collaboration initiatives at the intersection of disaster risk reduction, climate change adaptation, and displacement.
Dr. Ricardo Safra de Campos
Ricardo Safra de Campos is Lecturer in Human Geography at the Global Systems Institute, University of Exeter (UK). His work explores the linkages between population movements and environmental change including implications for well-being, sustainability, and human security. He has long-standing collaborations with researchers in Bangladesh and other countries in South Asia, Africa, and Europe. He is the Associate Deputy Editor of the journal Climatic Change. Ricardo is a Contributing Author to Chapter 4: Sea Level Rise and Implications for Low-Lying Islands, Coasts, and Communities of the IPCC Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate released in 2020.
Dr. Georgina Cundill Kemp
Dr. Georgina Cundill Kemp is a Senior Program Specialist at the International Development Research Centre, based at the head office in Canada. She has 15 years of experience working at the interface of development, climate, governance, and livelihoods. She manages a portfolio of climate change adaptation research projects that span Asia, Africa, and Latin America. She has worked with international research teams on issues of climate change and migration, including those with a focus on Bangladesh, and has an interest in the gender dimensions of climate-induced migration, development outcomes for the most vulnerable, and the social impacts of planned relocation and displacement.
Professor Karen McNamara
Karen is a development geographer that is ultimately interested in how livelihoods (in the broadest sense) can be enhanced to respond to the triple crises of poverty, disaster risk, and climate change. Karen is an ARC Future Fellow (2020-2024) and Associate Professor in the School of Earth and Environmental Sciences at The University of Queensland (UQ). Karen has been undertaking applied and policy-relevant research in resilient livelihoods, climate change adaptation, non-economic loss and recovery, human mobility, and gender for over fifteen years, partnering with governments, and inter-governmental and non-governmental organisations throughout the Asia-Pacific region. She has published over 95 journal papers and book chapters, and 65 reports, online commentaries, and policy briefs.
Professor Dr. Peter Kjær Mackie Jensen
My focus area is cholera, water, sanitation, hygiene, and the transmission of diarrheal diseases. Currently, most of my work is related to Bangladesh, but many of the theories depart from our investigations of the 1853 cholera outbreak in Copenhagen. I am currently heading the disasters and environmental hygiene research group at the Copenhagen Center for Disaster Research (COPE) at the Department of Public Health, University of Copenhagen, Denmark. I have previously linked my environmental health profile with my interest in disasters through a position as Director of COPE and as the creator and head of Studies for the Master of Disaster Management program.
Dr. Emmanuel Raju
Emmanuel is currently the Director of the Copenhagen Centre for Disaster Research- an inter-institutional research center COPE linking disaster research and education (Master of Disaster Management).
He also works on issues on Disasters and Memory; International frameworks on Disasters and is interested in issues of integration of climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction. He has conducted research in India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, South Africa and Denmark. Emmanuel holds a PhD from Lund University, Sweden. His PhD focussed on Disaster Recovery Coordination post-tsunami in India.
Dr. Benoy Peter
Benoy Peter is a policy and advocacy specialist with over two decades of progressive experience ranging from grassroots programme to policy and advocacy. An expert on migration and social inclusion, Peter has a PhD. in Population Sciences from the Department of Migration and Urban Studies, International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS). He has immense experience of working with workers in the informal sector in India. Co-founder of Centre for Migration and Inclusive Development (CMID), a think tank devoted to the social inclusion of migrants in India, Peter headed the consortium of organisations in the preparation of the policy paper ‘Road Map for the Inclusion of Internal Migrant Workers in India’s Policy Framework’ for the International Labour Organization’s (ILO) Decent Work Team for South Asia. He has been instrumental in the repatriation of over 50 Bangladeshi labourers who, without having valid travel documents ended up in prisons/government mental health centres in India. He has provided technical support to programmes in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, Pakistan, and South Africa in addition to India.
Ken De Souza
Ken De Souza is Research Manager, Climate, Energy and Water Research Team Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office.
Dr. Celia McMichael
Celia McMichael is an Associate Professor, and Deputy Head of School, in the School of Geography, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at The University of Melbourne. She is a human geographer whose research investigates human migration, environmental change, and health. She has conducted field-based research in Australia, Peru, Fiji, Philippines, Sri Lanka, and Nepal; she works closely with local co-researchers in research sites. Dr McMichael is an author and collaborator on the Lancet Global Countdown on Climate Change and Health. She has worked with the World Health Organization, International Federation of the Red Cross, International Organization for Migration, UNFPA, and UNESCAP on consultancies and research in the fields of human migration, climate change, and international health.
Iria Touzon Calle
Iria Touzon Calle is a Risk knowledge and analysis Programme Officer at the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific.