An Overview of the Conference

The Risk, Emergency and Business Continuity Management Conference, in it's (third) edition that shall be held during the year 2024 will address the pivotal role of enhancing readiness in the management of emergencies, crises and disasters to enable sustainable resilience, through a series of topics, dialogue sessions, workshops and an accompanying exhibition, and discussing the importance of preparing, emergency planning and business continuity to enhance readiness in light of the economical changes, social, environmental, and technical variables and their complexities, and highlighting simulation systems and office, operational, and field exercise activities, which are an essential focus for learning, training, and testing plans and for the purpose of verifying the Sufficiency and efficiency of resources, capacities and capabilities, and the effectiveness of governance for dealing with emergency situations, the conference also discusses ways to maximize the benefit of technologies in general, and to enable emerging technologies and artificial intelligence in particular, and employ them in enhancing effective response, and reviewing their future developments, and sheds light on the topic of sustainable recovery from crises and disasters, and the importance of aligning recovery work with the principles of sustainable development and the principle of "building back better." The dialogue sessions will address the enablers, opportunities, challenges, elements and forms of community participation and its governance during crises and disasters, the conference will bring together an elite group of the most prominent decision makers, experts, leaders of national, regional and global agencies and institutions, and other relevant sectors, and a number of researchers, academics and stakeholders in this field, to shed light and review the best methodologies, practices and experiences that have contributed to enhancing readiness for sustainable resilience.

Conference Objectives

Highlight the importance of emergency planning and preparedness in enhancing the readiness of resources, capacities and capabilities to efficiently and sufficiency respond to emergencies, crises, and disasters and to sustainably recover from them.
Highlight the importance of desk, operational and field simulation activities and the lessons gained from them as an aid to learning and training to provide responders with the necessary skills and to ensure the readiness of resources, capabilities and capacities.
Leverage and employ emerging technologies and artificial intelligence in enhancing effective response during emergency, crisis and disaster management, and review their future development.
Promote the principles of sustainable recovery from crises and disasters and of "building back better" to reduce, prevent and mitigate the risks of crises and disasters in the future.
Exchange experiences, disseminate knowledge, explore opportunities, develop partnerships, and employ best local, regional and international practices and experiences in work to enhance readiness.
Raise the level of risk culture and awareness in society and make optimal use of volunteer work to contribute to enhancing preparedness during emergencies, crises and disasters.

Conference Themes

Emergency Planning and Business Continuity

Emergency preparedness and planning, and the business continuity of essential services, are directly linked to the enhancement of overall readiness. The concept of ‘readiness’ captures the efforts of all concerned entities to proactively plan resources, capabilities, capacities, procedures and actions; to, validate their effectiveness; ; and to ensure their efficiency and sufficiency for an effective and coordinated response to emergencies, crises, and disasters and recovery from them in a sustainable manner. The concept of readiness also captures the development, review and updating of emergency and business continuity plans to ensure that they are effective. This theme will therefore address preparedness, emergency planning, and business continuity as tools and enablers to enhance readiness. It will also encompass the mechanisms and challenges of governance and the development of plans which reflect current economic, social, environmental and technical changes and complexities, and how emergency planning and business continuity can be reimagined in a manner which is compatible with this sector’s future and the challenges it faces.

Simulation systems and hypothetical exercises

Simulation systems and desk, operational, and field drills are critical to the testing of emergency, crisis, disaster and business continuity plans, to ensure the Sufficiency and efficiency of resources, capabilities, capacities as well as the effectiveness of mechanisms for the overall governance of the tasks, roles, and responsibilities of entities engaged in addressing the impacts of emergencies. Testing different hypotheses and scenarios for potential risks in an environment marked by massive uncertainty is crucial for learning and training to acquire the necessary skills and to ensure the readiness of the concerned authorities to implement the procedures and actions contained in the plans. Testing has the aim of evaluating, improving, developing and updating such plans and skills. This theme will address the most prominent methodologies, tools, applied practices, and international and local experiences in the field of simulation systems and drills.

Effective response

This theme is associated with the promotion of an effective response to emergencies, crises, disasters and incidents of disruption or interruption in the provision of essential services, and the procedures, arrangements and guidance mechanisms implemented immediately before, during or after the occurrence of the emergency, crisis, or disaster. The aim of discussion under this theme is to identify the best means of saving lives, ensuring public health and safety, meeting the essential services of those affected, and mitigating the negative impacts. The theme will also address methods of leveraging technologies, with a particular focus on emerging technologies and artificial intelligence in enhancing effective response, with a focus on reviewing future developments which could contribute towards monitoring, control, surveillance, warning, alerting, search and rescue, aid, evacuation, relief and shelter. Finally, this theme will illuminate the use of data mining as an enabler in achieving the objectives of an effective response.

Sustainable recovery

Because there is a wide variability in the causes and severity of crises and disasters; the resulting human, resource and technical losses can also vary accordingly. This theme addresses sustainable recovery from crises and disasters. The alignment of actions taken for the restoration of conditions to normality, and for rehabilitation, repair and reconstruction, with the principles of sustainable development and "building back better", is critical in preventing and mitigating the risks of crises and disasters. In that context, technical disaster recovery plans also play a vital role in restoring information technology infrastructure and services, and sustaining their vital functions in the event of disruption, interruption, destruction, or damage to networks, devices, or systems due to cyber-attacks, natural disasters, or human activities.

Community engagement

Community engagement plays a prominent role in preventing risks and in reducing the impacts of crises and disasters, especially at the social level, through initiatives by civil society organizations and the individual efforts enabled through volunteer participation. In that context, this theme will address the enablers, opportunities, challenges, and mechanisms for and features of community engagement and its governance during crises and disasters, including their integration with those of the relevant authorities. The theme will also highlight the importance and value of humanitarian work, and of promoting a public risk culture and community awareness. It will review the most prominent community contributions, the lessons learned from them, the challenges they faced and ways of addressing them, and the benefit gained from successful practices and distinguished experiences globally in this field, as well as the best means of transferring and applying them after alignment.