Mo Hamza

I have a career balanced between academia and practice working with a variety of international humanitarian and aid agencies and teaching, research and managing academic programmes at universities. I have engaged and, continue to, work with and advise organisations such as: The World Bank, Asia Development Bank, UNDP, UNISDR, USAID, DfID, IFRC, Sida, ActionAid, Swedish Red Cross, and MSB. I undertook consultancy and operational work in: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Botswana, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Jordan, Kyrgyzstan, Liberia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka, Sudan, South Eastern Europe and the Balkan States. Previously I was the course leader of the Masters in Disaster Management (MDMa) at the University of Copenhagen; and the Munich-Re Foundation Chair of Social Vulnerability Studies at the United Nations University (UNU).

I currently lead the division’s part on a major Sida funded programme on Environmental Governance in Natural Resource Management working in partnership with UNDP and the Swedish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA). I advised UNISDR on the MADRiD initiative – Mainstreaming Adaptation and Disaster Reduction in Development; advised IUCN on coastal resilience in South Asia and worked with MSB on developing the capacity of the National Red Cross Societies in Sierra Leone and Liberia, the National Disaster Management Office in Botswana, and the 12 member states of the Disaster Preparedness and Prevention Initiative (DPPI) in South East Europe, to mention a few. I was the lead author and editor of the World Disasters Report (2015) “Focus on local actors: the key to humanitarian effectiveness.

Research Interests

My research and professional interests include disaster risk and vulnerability reduction, post-disaster reconstruction and recovery, climate change impact and adaptation in fragile and failed states, capacity development, and training and facilitation.