Lessons in pandemic crisis management one year on

Geneva Centre for Security Policy (GCSP)

Lessons in pandemic crisis management one year is episode 1 in this new GCSP Podcast Series. Dr Paul Vallet interviews Mr David Horobin, Head of Crisis Management at the GCSP. Paul Vallet: Welcome to the Geneva Centre for Security Policy podcast. I'm your host, Dr Paul Vallet, and I am an Associate Fellow with the GCSP’s Global Fellowship Initiative. Thank you for tuning into our podcast. I look forward to exploring some of the latest global issues affecting peace, security and international cooperation with you over the next 13 weeks as we make this podcast a weekly event speaking with subject matter experts. In this week's episode, our first, we will speak with David Horobin. David Horobin is the Head of the Crisis Management cluster at the GCSP. With more than 25 years of operational experience in particular as the Director of the Operations Team, for the UK Department for International developments from 2003-2006. And then heading the rapid deployment unit and later the crisis management and security department for the International Committee of the Red Cross between 2006 and 2017 when he joined the GCSP. And I'd also like to point out that David will be participating in two forthcoming crisis management courses at the GCSP in March (Crisis Management: Navigating the Storm - A Virtual Learning Journey) and in May (Critical Incident Management 2021 - A Virtual Learning Journey) of this year, 2021. So, thank you very much, David, for agreeing to appear on our show. We're looking forward to talking to you about what has been quite momentous year, I think for all experienced crisis management professionals. As you know, we're marking almost the first anniversary these few days and coming weeks of the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic, in Europe, especially in the start of the lockdown regimes and most of the European countries. And so, of course, we're looking forward to we're using this perhaps one year's worth of lessons that you may be able to talk to us about. So, my first question to you was about precisely what lessons have been learned in matters of sanitary early warning and first response? David Horobin: Thank you very much, Paul. And a pleasure to be here and to talk about, probably the biggest crisis that any of us have had to deal with, in certainly a generation, probably 100 years. And I think everybody has been suffering from this in one form or shape or another. And indeed, we have been very busy at GCSP talking to and reviewing and researching the crisis management aspects of COVID for the last 12 months.