Start Ready is announcing the appointment of its first Governance Committee. The Start Ready Committee has been selected by a panel consisting of a Governance Design Group. Formed in June 2021, the group worked for 6 months to develop and agree on the governance structure, principles, processes, and guidelines that would steer this new fund.
After reviewing 20 applications from individuals seeking to be part of the Start Ready Governance Committee, their efforts culminated in the selection of 9 candidates who will now govern Start Ready for the next 24-36 months.
Expertise in this group ranges from the insurance, finance, risk management, climate science, and humanitarian sectors. Representation is balanced with regards to gender, those who are Start Network members versus those who are independents, geographic location and representation by both local and global NGOs.
The Start Ready Governance Committee will make the decisions pertaining to Start Ready funding – the most significant of which will be pre-arranging of funding across a minimum of 4 predictable risks (including drought, heatwave, and flood) in a minimum of 2 countries. Start Network is excited to introduce these incredible individuals, who will play a huge role in spearheading this one-of-a-kind fund. They are:
Kazi Amdadul Hoque (Chair)
Kazi Amdadul has more than twenty-five years of experience in the field of Humanitarian and Development projects and in particular, implementation and advocacy. He is currently Senior Director of Strategic Planning and Head of Climate Action with Friendship-Bangladesh, a national NGO reaching 7.5 million people. He is an elected member of the Executive Committee of the Start Fund, and has contributed to various Start Network initiatives, including anticipatory alerts, the Start Ready Design Group, and the national FOREWARN Committee. Furthermore, he has worked in developing strategic plans, governance systems and managing pooled funds with different organisations and networks including Save the Children International, NEARS network and ESRAG.
Kazi’s rich experience with Start Fund Bangladesh, in national fund management and localisation and the onboarding of over 30 new local members to Start Network will be extremely valuable in Start Ready’s decision-making process.
Andrew Jinks
Andrew Jinks brings actuarial knowledge and expertise to the Start Ready decision-making process, particularly feeding into fund allocation decisions across risks – with the probabilities of their occurrence front of mind.
Andrew works for the UK Government Actuary’s Department as a qualified actuary with over 14 years of experience in financial and risk modelling. His role within the department – Head of Insurance and Investment – involves exploring potentials to better understand and manage extreme fiscal risks, pricing, reserving and general running of risk pools in the UK. The team Andrew oversees provides actuarial advice to the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, the Centre for Disaster Protection, and the World Bank.
Audrey Onsomu (Vice-Chair)
Start Ready’s Vice Chair Audrey Onsomu has extensive experience in governance, risk, compliance, and controls. She is currently Head of Risk Management, Quality Systems and Compliance at a leading healthcare organization in Kenya, having previously served as Manager and Consultant at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) Limited Kenya and USA in the Risk and Assurance departments. She has trained various organisations on various topics in Risk Management and resilience and is now a passionate voice of anticipatory action in the non-governmental space.
Her motivation to join the Start Ready Committee lies in her extensive corporate experience managing risks – bringing risk management expertise to Start Ready, her interest in sustainability and experience with Corporate Social Responsibility Programs in the East African region.
Chiara Ambrosino
Chiara Ambrosino brings unique and valued climate science expertise to the Governance Committee and she will provide indispensable advice regarding the reliability of forecasts, the certainties and knowledge of the phenomena we are trying to tackle through Start Ready.
Chiara is currently the Climate, Environment and Resilience Adviser with Plan International UK, providing technical advisory on climate resilience, green skills and livelihoods, climate information systems, anticipation to weather and climate hazards, and environmental conservation. She has over 15 years of experience working in the humanitarian and development sector, focusing on food security and climate resilience. Alongside, she has also successfully completed a PhD in Climate Change focusing on producing robust climate information for food and water security in Southern Africa as well as bridging the gap between science and end-users.
Gang Karume
Gang Karume is a consultant working on a range of humanitarian related activities, including supporting the formation of the Start Network DRC Hub and acting as the interim DRF/FOREWARN Coordinator. He has extensive experience in humanitarian programme coordination and leadership with the DRC for more than 20 years, working with organisations like IRC, Care International, and national NGOs. Previously, he was a Technical Advisor for a DRC based NGO, Rebuild Hope for Africa (RHA), active in the fields of emergency assistance provision and research. He is currently doing a doctorate thesis in sustainable energies along with playing an advisory role to various humanitarian structures in the DRC.
Gang brings extensive humanitarian experience from the DRC to the Committee, including direct supervision of the development and build of a disaster risk financing programme. In addition, his role with the DRC Hub – championing locally led action – brings a national perspective to Start Ready’s decision-making.
Issack Maalim
Issack Maalim represents a local network of NGOs – and this perspective will influence the key decisions made in Start Ready from a localised network perspective. He also is a representative from Africa, bringing longstanding experience and a nuanced perspective of the humanitarian sector in the Horn of Africa to Start Ready.
Issack is a consultant and a humanitarian worker with over sixteen years of experience in complex humanitarian emergencies, resilience, recovery, development and research initiatives in Kenya, Somalia and South Sudan. He is currently the NEXUS platform Director and focal person for Somalia Humanitarian Hub (a Start Network initiative to devolve power and decision-making structures to national coordination bodies). The NEXUS platform is a consortium of local, national, and international organisations strengthening the localisation agenda and voicing concerns and challenges facing local and national actors in Somalia. In addition, the platform has a locally led and managed pool fund disbursing to anticipatory and emergency alerts, which Issack was instrumental in establishing.
Oenone Chadburn
Oenone currently sits on the Start Network board of trustees and has been involved in the Start Ready Design Group. She is Head of Tearfund’s Humanitarian and Resilience team. She has been working with Tearfund since 2004 in various roles including Country Director for Afghanistan and Pakistan, and International Programme Manager for their Global DRR Programme; a 5-year multi-million programme funded by DFID. Prior to this, she worked with UNDP in conflict-affected areas of Sri Lanka, which evolved into the 2002 Sri Lankan Peace Process. A clear advocate for locally led disaster risk management and the role of local organisations in humanitarian response, Oenone has commissioned several prominent research and resource pieces, including Characteristics of a Disaster-Resilient Community (Twigg 2007), and co-led on the ‘Missed Opportunities’ series of research papers which were the forerunner to Charter4Change.
Oenone has ample experience making decisions under uncertainty – in testing humanitarian contexts – and will bring rigorous decision making prowess to Start Ready.
Syed Sulaiman
Syed is the Senior Emergency and DRR advisor for Concern Worldwide in Pakistan and has more than twenty years of experience in national and international disaster response. He has been heavily involved in the inception and management of Start Network’s Disaster Risk Financing programme since its inception in Pakistan in early 2017, including chairing the Drought Technical Working Group, and as a member of the Start Ready Design Group supporting Start Network in designing and developing processes for its governance. He is part of the National Steering Committee of the Shifting the Power programme of Start Network in Pakistan, which strengthens the capacity of local NGOs and networks in the country. He is a founding member of the Pakistan Hub as well.
Syed also brings his recent experience working on disaster risk financing programmes in Pakistan which will be key in Start Ready’s first year of operationalisation. Syed has a wealth of experience in humanitarian – specifically early – action, in difficult to reach areas working with local partners.
Sandra Judith Miguel Martínez
Sandra has worked in the humanitarian and risk management sector at local and community levels for the past 11 years, with experience in implementing development projects in different regions of Guatemala. She is currently responsible for the coordination of the ‘Management Route for Disaster Risk Reduction and Humanitarian Aid’ in ASECSA, a Guatemalan NGO that promotes community health. She has experience in emergency management, project management, project monitoring and evaluation and fund management in humanitarian aid and has participated in the Design Committee of Start Ready, advising and leading the design and creation of the fund, as well as in the creation of the Guatemala Hub.
The Start Ready Committee is a programmatic sub-committee of the Start Network Board of Trustees. Members are expected to govern Start Ready with rigour and impartiality – in order to achieve Start Ready’s objective of protecting the greatest number of people against the risk of predictable crises worldwide, with the available funding.
Start Ready has been in development and testing for 4 years, culminating in its launch at COP 26 in 2021. Building on Start Network’s experience in developing locally led disaster risk financing (DRF) systems, Start Ready enables frontline humanitarians to access early, predictable funds. Through Start Ready, national and local institutions and NGOs are supported to collectively analyse and quantify crisis risks. They set trigger levels for action, pre-agree plans and prearrange funding ahead of predictable crises.
Start Ready then provides funding at scale to national networks of members and organisations through a range of DRF instruments. These instruments include insurance, risk pooling and national contingency funds.