International Online-Lecture: Rebuilding Businesses in Ukraine: Risk and Crisis Management Lessons for Conflict and High-Risk Areas

Registration is open for everyone.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has made catastrophic impacts on Ukraine, causing Europe’s largest refugee crisis since the second World War, loss of lives and humanitarian crisis, destruction to infrastructure and disproportionate shocks in the demand and supply systems of businesses of all sizes.

In 2020, the OECD estimated that over 95% of the Ukrainian business population represented SMEs (both legal enterprises and individual entrepreneurs). These SMEs belong to the trade sector (26.16%), agriculture (14.19%) and industry (11.82%) and employed almost 81% of the labour force and generated 65% of total sales. The Ukrainian state policy gave importance to the SMEs and MSMEs through the approval of the Strategy for Small and Medium-sized Enterprise Development in 2017 and implemented effective action plans from 2018 onwards.

With on-going war in several parts of the country and ceasefire talks failing to make progress, the road to peace in the country and socio-economic recovery of businesses are largely unclear. Nevertheless, the need to reduce further economic loss and maintain business stability to avoid stepping into the ‘conflict-poverty trap’ is growing.

EBA Management Development Centre together with Professor Maharaj Vijay Reddy invite you to take part in the International Online-Lecture: Rebuilding Businesses in Ukraine: Risk and Crisis Management Lessons for Conflict and High-Risk Areas.

Speaker: Professor Maharaj Vijay Reddy, based at Birmingham City University Business School in the UK, is an expert in disaster management and sustainable SME growth. His contribution in the field of sustainable development so far has attracted the attention of practitioners, professional associations and some of the international policy agencies driving sustainability practices, business resilience and poverty reduction around the world (e.g., United Nations Division for Sustainable Development, UNESCO, and UNEP Sustainable Consumption and Production Branch). As principal investigator and co-investigator, Vijay’s projects were commissioned by national and international organizations, including UNESCO (2002-03), Rufford Foundation (2002), Royal Geographic Society (2004), UNESCO (2005), British Academy (2007), British Academy (2009), Higher Education Innovation Fund (2010-12), Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation (2013), British Council (2015), and British Council (2019-2022). Some of these projects focussed on both natural and human-driven disasters and crises (e.g., 2004 Asian earthquake and tsunami, 2011 Japanese earthquake, tsunami and Fukushima nuclear disasters, Northern Ireland post-conflict recovery and protracted Kashmir conflict). Vijay’s expert opinions were often sought by print and broadcast media in the UK and abroad, which include BBC TV, Sky TV, ITV, BBC Radio, Arabian Business, and Asian Voice.

In this context, the online-lecture will include strategic directions with academic underpinning, practical business examples from previous war zones and protracted conflict areas (e.g., Iraq, Syria, Columbia, Sri Lanka and Kashmir) and policy guidelines from international agencies such as the United Nations Global Compact and United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR), in line with the UN Decade of Action.

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