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Professor of Risk Management and Societal Safety at Lund University, Sweden. In a career spanning 35 years so far, I worked with international development organisations including: World Bank, ADB, UNDP, UNISDR, USAID, DfID, IFRC, IUCN, Swedish Red Cross, and the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency (MSB). My primary areas of professional expertise and research work are: Disaster risk and vulnerability reduction, post-disaster recovery, climate change impact and adaptation in fragile and failed states, environmental displacement and capacity development. Previously I was Chair of Social Vulnerability Studies at the United Nations University, Bonn, Germany; a Senior Research Fellow at the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI), Sweden and an advisor to the MIT Climate CoLab. I undertook consultancy and research work in: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Botswana, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Jordan, Kyrgyzstan, Liberia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Uganda, UK, South Eastern Europe and the Balkan States. I am currently developing several research proposal and initiatives on climate induced displacement in Africa; state fragility and state failure in the Middle East; and refugee integration and return. I was the lead author and editor of the World Disasters Report (2015) “Focus on local actors, the key to humanitarian effectiveness”.