Today I am joined by Professor David Sanderson who has specialised in urban disaster, urban resilience and humanitarian aid. We hear almost on a daily basis about a disaster going on somewhere in the world, David weighs in on why we are seeing so much of this happening and what actually constitutes a disaster. He also talks about the role of aid and what actually is effective humanitarian aid. Our environment directly influences our health and this is a theme we will continue to be exploring in the coming weeks.

Selected Links from the Episode

Professor David Sanderson bio

Unstress episode with Dr. Paul Ehrlich on global challenges

Time to Listen by Mardy Anderson

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Dr. Ron Ehrlich: Hello and welcome to “Unstress” where we explore what stresses us as individuals and the planet the two as we know are inseparable. I'm Dr. Ron Ehrlich.

Living in the city. Well, it's a fact of life for many of us and how comfortable we are in it is also important to our health and the health of the planet. There are many factors about city life which have the potential to cause stresses and strains from life in the city even at the best of times. But what about when disaster hits an urban environment? What are the challenges? What are the opportunities? My guest today is Professor David Sanderson who has specialised in urban disaster, urban resilience, and humanitarian aid.

And we're so often confronted in our news with disasters. It seems that it's a nightly event and my conversation with David raises some of those drivers for those supposed natural disasters. He'll challenge that concept and some of the challenges and guiding principles in delivering meaningful aid.

David has over 25 years’ experience working across the world in development and emergencies. He's worked as project manager at the Oxford Centre for Disaster Studies in the early 90s. Then for eight years with the NGO Care International UK as head of policy and then with CARE as regional manager for Southern and West Africa.

From 2006 to 2013 David was Director of the Centre of Oxford Brookes University focusing on development and emergencies. Between 2013 and 14 he was a full-time visiting professor at Harvard University where he taught a course “Design For Urban Disaster”. And from 2014 and 15 was at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. In 2016 Australia was fortunate enough to have David appointed to a chair of architecture at the University of New South Wales – UNSW.

So, when it comes to humanitarian aid in urban settings and the lessons we can learn from it David is well qualified. I hope you enjoy this conversation I had with Professor David Sanderson.

Download the PDF transcription

Welcome to the show David.

David Sanderson: Thank you, Ron, very nice to be here.

Dr. Ron Ehrlich: David you are in the University of New South Wales School of built environment which I think used to be called architecture, but your journey is a varied one. I wonder if you could just share with our listener that journey part of that journey.

David Sanderson: Well, I've been involved in the built environment I suppose for going on 30 years I trained as an architect but in the very early 1990s fell into the aid world doing a course on development and emergencies mostly in poorer countries, in Africa and Asia and Latin America was my first experience and I've been working in that ever since.

And so, I worked for nearly 15 years in operational organisations and like many people in that world got very tired and took extended sick leave. And dozen or so years ago I entered into academia in the UK and then worked in a number of places, moved to America and then to Norway and I'm extremely happy to say, the last two years living in Sydney Australia with UNSW.

Dr. Ron Ehrlich: Fantastic and welcome to the country. I'm sure there have been many official welcomes but let this be another one.