Q&A with Sophie Evans, Associate Director - Advisory

The Centre for Disaster Protection has now appointed its full leadership team.  You can find out more in a series of Q&As with each of them. Here Sophie Evans, Head of Country Programmes, explains what she’s excited to get working on and why the COP was her favourite conference of 2019.

Why did you want to join the Centre?

Joining the Centre means working with amazing colleagues, as well as with governments, organisations and individuals across the globe. And it’s an incredible opportunity to work with the team to shape the Centre and build an organisation passionate about delivering on its mission.

What are you excited to get working on?

The focus of my role is supporting our country partners. Collaborating with and learning from our country partners is vital to ensure that disasters are not surprises.  Learning from them about what’s working, current challenges and what ideas are making an impact to the lives of the most poor and vulnerable people means we can look to add real value and share these learnings across all that we do. 

What one thing do you think could make the biggest difference in DRF?

I would like to build the evidence and innovate to understand how we can stop disasters devastating the lives of women and girls, because they are often disproportionately affected by climate change. Getting DRF right for them would have a significant impact.

What innovation in this field is exciting you currently?

I’m really excited about anticipatory finance. Taking the best parts of how insurance can support resilience to disasters, including a rules-based approach, and delivering to problems where predictable financing may not have been considered an option previously could be hugely impactful.  

What do you hope the Centre will mean for DRF in the future?

The Centre offers a great opportunity to bring brilliant minds together to innovate, test and learn from experience to advance DRF into the next decade and beyond. Most importantly, we can build on this to bring DRF at a quality that ensures the impact is felt by the poorest and most vulnerable people in developing countries – protecting and saving lives.

What has been a career highlight for you to date?

Getting the job at the Centre!

What media do you enjoy?

I love podcasts.  They’re how I get most of my information as it makes the best use of time.  I particularly like the BBC’s 50 Things that Made the Modern Economy.  Brain Pickings is also great for a long-read on my commute and when a deeper perspective is required.

Favourite conference of 2019?

I love the annual Development & Climate (D&C) Days at the Conference of the Parties (COP), which are put together by a fantastic group of climate practitioners who bring the climate and development ideas to the event each year. In an unexpected twist one of them managed to persuade me to do a stand-up comedy course for people working in climate and sustainability.  It remains one of the hardest things I have done in my career, but one of the most rewarding. The course prompts you to always find the light in any situation.

Favourite Twitter accounts?

When I need to escape you can find me scrolling through @LettersOfNote, @NigelSlater for recipes, @qikipedia for Quite Interesting facts, and @AdamRutherford for science. For climate action inspiration I follow @camillaborn, @bbuchner13, @StacySwann, @clareshakya and @PabloSurGames.

Most looking forward to in 2020?

I’m really looking forward to getting our team all together. We’ve hired amazing people who are dedicated, committed, creative, ridiculously smart with fantastic ideas and I can’t wait to work with my brilliant colleagues to deliver on our mission.


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Q&A with Daniel Clarke, Director

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International financial institutions need to do more to protect the poorest from disasters