Suzy Paisley

Suzy is originally from the UK, moved to the Pacific in 2002, and has spent 15 years working for various agencies to design and deliver emergency management and development programmes across the Asia-Pacific region. She has, until recently, worked as a disaster risk management (DRM) generalist on a range of initiatives. These have included supporting coordination of humanitarian actors, emergency preparedness and response, inclusive disaster risk reduction, climate change adaptation, connecting science and practice, commissioning and undertaking social science research, strengthening end-to-end early warning systems, disaster risk financing, post-disaster needs assessments and resilient development projects. Suzy is an advocate for the Gender and Disasters Network and the #nonaturaldisasters campaign.

Suzy moved to New Zealand in 2017 to work for GNS Science and in 2021 took on the role of Recovery Team Leader at Te Rākau Whakamarumaru, New Zealand’s National Emergency Management Agency. She is learning a lot in this role about the different layers of government and the ‘window of opportunity’ that recovery presents to reduce risk.