Bangkok, Thailand - The theme of 4th Annual Brain Ward Memorial Lecture as Innovations in Climate Adaptation and Disaster Resilience outlines the critical importance of disaster and climate innovations in reaching communities and people with meaningful improvements in the society, measuring the outcomes and impact of ADPC's effort for a safer world. New technologies and changes in the social fabric provide opportunities to do things in new and better ways. Leveraging advanced technology and prioritizing a demand-driven approach to climate resilience, ADPC through its World Bank's CARE project is offering a new ground in using innovative approaches to help decision makers better respond to a changing climate.

Dr. Tom Mitchell, Executive Director of the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), United Kingdom, delivered the keynote speech of the event where he identified the economic benefits of investing in resilience innovations and how they will help address the different development challenges people face like financing gaps.

'The future is going to be about significant investment and spending from public and private on strengthening resilience,' he said, adding that the Bank of America predicts that the climate adaptive market alone will be worth US $2 trillion a year with the next five years.

Dr. Mitchell also shared global examples of how communities are currently harnessing new technologies and ideas to build resilience and support economic growth, such as piloting the SLAMDAM by Zephyr Consulting which ADPC supports in Pakistan through its Climate Innovation Challenge. Attendees explored methods for technological transfer, local acceptance of new technologies, protecting intellectual property, different stakeholder roles, innovation clusters, adaptation taxonomy, and gender equality, rights-based and diversity considerations for building resilience during the open discussion.

Tom Mitchell is the Executive Director of the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), United Kingdom, steering the overall direction and leadership of IIED's staff, work programmes and partnerships. He leads on public communications, strategy development and implementation. He engages in public debate in key international events. He has a passion for finding innovative ways to unlock climate justice and is the author of the climate action strategy-Transformation, in Time. Until September 2022 was the Chief Strategy Officer of climate-KIC and Director of Climate-KIC International Foundation. He is a former co-ordinating lead author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and UN Special Representative senior advisor.