Sarah Klassen from Start Network and Jon Stone from the Risk-informed Early Action Partnership Secretariat (REAP), discuss how early action could help prevent the spread of COVID-19 in vulnerable communities, in this interview with Patricia Atkinson, IKEA Foundation Chief Programme Officer. You’ll hear more about preparedness and examples from the field. Sarah and Jon explain how local actors are leading the way in responding to the pandemic and look at how climate change is severely impacting people in remote parts of the world.  

Guests Bio  Sarah Klassen is a Crisis Anticipation Technical Advisor with Start Network, supporting humanitarian agencies to act in anticipation of crises. Her goal is to help put projects in place on the ground to mitigate escalating risks before a disaster occurs. Previously, Sarah worked with World Vision in a humanitarian context analysis team. She project managed context analyses and scenario planning in places such as Democratic Republic of the Congo, Central African Republic, Afghanistan and Mali. Before this, Sarah worked in humanitarian policy and advocacy roles with a focus on child protection in emergencies.  

Twitter handle: @sarahWVUK 
 
Jon Stone is passionate about enabling the poor to reduce losses and suffering from disasters. He is seconded from the UK Government Department for International Development to the Red Cross to be the Head of the Risk-informed Early Action Partnership Secretariat. This aims to make 1 billion people safer from climate extremes and disasters by 2025.  
Twitter handle: @EarlyActionREAP 

Mentioned in this episode 

To get questions that have been asked during this session: 

https://ikeafoundation.org/ask-an-expert-with-sarah-klassen-and-jon-stone/ 

To know more about Start Network’s partnership with IKEA Foundation:  

https://ikeafoundation.org/story/start-network-rapid-funds-covid-19-response/ 

To know more about Start Network’s call to action: 
https://startnetwork.org/news-and-blogs/why-we-need-anticipatory-approach-humanitarian-crises-and-covid-19 

To learn more about Risk-informed Early Action Partnership (REAP):
http://www.globalresiliencepartnership.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/REAP-two-pager-230819.pdf 

 Show credits 
Host: Altaf Makhiawala, Strategic Communicator, IKEA Foundation 

Executive Producer: Truus Huisman, Chief Communication Officer  

Researcher: Blanche van de Stolpe, Strategic Communicator, IKEA Foundation 

An Andy Clark Media Production for the IKEA Foundation 

Want to contact the show? Reach out at wehearyou@ikeafoundation.org 

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Learn more about IKEA Foundation: www.ikeafoundation.org 

Programming Note:   

This conversation was recorded as part of the Ask An Expert series livestreamed online on 30 April 2020. This is an edited and produced version of the conversation for this podcast.