Continuing the WCC's popular Women's Climate Conversations online series, this conversation took a deep dive into gender equality, climate change and the impact of climate disasters on women.

In a conversation facilitated by WCC founding member, writer and artist, Toni Hassan, gender and disaster risk reduction expert and WCC Steering Circle member, Dr Mary Picard, spoke about the recently launched Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction Gender Action Plan of which she was one of the key writers. They were joined by Amanda Lamont, co-founder of the Australasian Women in Emergencies Network, and Professor Margaret Alston AM OAM, Head of the Gender, Leadership and Social Sustainability Research Unit, Newcastle University and an eminent researcher on the impacts of climate disasters on women, including in Australia.

This event was presented in association with Community Radio 3CR 'Earth Matters'.

Meet our conversationalists:

Dr Mary Picard works from Australia as an international consultant in disaster and climate risk law, policy and practice, and is a recognised specialist on women’s resilience to disasters and climate change, working with UN Women, the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR), and the Asian Development Bank. This work evolved during 16 years overseas from 2000 to 2017 in Switzerland, Guatemala and Zimbabwe, after being a trade union official and then an anti-discrimination and labour lawyer in Melbourne in the 1980s/90s. Mary completed a Master’s and PhD in international law in Geneva and began working in international disaster response law with the Red Cross, which evolved into national disaster and climate risk governance over the last decade.

Amanda Lamont is the co-founder of the Australasian Women in Emergencies Network and Chair of the Women in Emergencies for Climate Action Chapter of that network.

She has an established career as a disaster resilience adviser, climate change storyteller, firefighter, emergency volunteer, world explorer, writer, photographer and public speaker. A qualified lawyer, she has over 25 years of experience in roles spanning executive leadership, corporate partnerships, international humanitarian and community development, disaster management and climate action. She has held senior roles in government, INGOs, not-for-profits and corporate enterprises.

Amanda was awarded the National Emergency Medal for services in relation to the Queensland Monsoonal Floods in 2018 and the 2019-20 Australian Bushfires.

Professor Margaret Alston AM OAM is a Professor of Social Work in the School of Humanities and Social Science, Newcastle University. She was previously Professor of Social Work and Head of Department at Monash University, and in 2008, established the Gender, Leadership and Social Sustainability (GLASS) research unit. Her main areas of research are gender, climate and environmental disasters, rural women and social work.

Margaret has authored several books on the role of farming women in Australian agriculture, arguing that Australian farming women have been neglected, ignored and silenced in mainstream narratives about rural Australian life. She has completed projects on gender and climate change in India, Bangladesh, Laos and the Pacific and was a resident gender expert at the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO)’s offices in Rome in 2009, 2007 and 2003. In 2009 I was also appointed as a UN gender expert by UN-Habitat to advise on the detailed report on the impact of climate change on global cities. She also worked as a gender expert for UNEP in Geneva training field staff on gender sensitive practice.

In 2021, Margaret was awarded an AM for services to social work education and research. In 2010, she was awarded an OAM for services to rural women and to social work.

In conversation with ….

Toni Hassan is a writer who has held diverse positions in communications, advocacy and project management in the not-for-profit sector and government sector. She is also an artist too, seeking to combine social justice concerns with visual practice. She is a founding member of WCC.