Disasters, Climate Change and Sustainability in South Asia Challenges and the Way Forward

Dr Mahfuzul Haque , on retirement as the Secretary of the Government of Bangladesh, has been teaching for a decade and half as an Adjunct Faculty in the Department of Development Studies, Bangladesh Institute of Governance and Management, Dhaka University and Department of Sociology at Bangladesh University of Professionals, Dhaka. His areas of interest are sustainable development; natural resource management; combating climate change; biodiversity conservation; natural disaster management; dams and development; development-induced displacement; development disaster; indigenous knowledge and practices, environmental laws and enforcement etc. He is a prolific writer and extensively contributed book chapters in edited books published by Springer-Nature, Routledge and Palgrave Macmillan. His contribution on “Environmental Governance” has appeared in  The Global Encyclopedia of Public Administration, Public Policy, and Governance . He has far consulted for the Government of Bangladesh in collaboration with many development partners, like, UNDP, UNICEF, FAO, ILO, DFID, JETI, OXFAM, European Union etc.  

Dr Mst. Marzina Begum is a Professor of Public Administration at the University of Rajshahi in Bangladesh. She received her Bachelor of Social Science (BSS) and Master of Social Science (MSS) degrees from the University of Rajshahi (Bangladesh) and she was the Institute of Environmental Science (IES) fellow at Rajshahi University before her Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degree awarded from the University of Pavia (Italy) on Institution, Administration and Regional Policies (IAPR) with Italian Government scholarship. Her primary research interests include Disaster Management, Disaster Risk Reduction, Environmental Policy and Governance, and Global Climate Change. She has published more than 30 research articles in international renowned journals, as well as chapters in books published with Taylor & Francis Group, Springer, Palgrave Macmillan, and Routledge. She has received prestigious Gro Brundtland award by the Tang Prize Foundation, Taiwan in 2016 and another award from Pandit Deendayal Energy University, Gujarat, India in 2023.

Dr. Faraha Nawaz is a Professor of the department of the Public Administration at University of Rajshahi, Bangladesh. As an academic, she has devoted herself in undertaking wide-ranging research in social sciences in general and gender issues in particular, and has published more than 30 articles in peer reviewed international journals, chapters in edited books, and three books published with Springer and Palgrave Macmillan. Dr. Nawaz is an active member of a number of international professional groups and networks and has presented scholarly papers in various international conferences. She is a recipient of various prestigious awards including the Charles Wallace award, Dev net Research award, Malaysian scholarly award, and an Australian Government scholarship. She was an international fellow of Brown University, USA and a research fellow of Contemporary South Asian Studies program, University of Oxford, UK.