National Disaster Management Authority      
Govt. of India

Prof. N. Vinod Chandra Menon is an alumnus of Kerala University and Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He has attended several Training Programmes, including the British Council-sponsored Gender Planning Training at the Institute of Development Studies, Sussex, UK; International Training Programme on Disaster Management at the Royal Military College of Sciences, Cranfield University, UK; ICSSR-sponsored Indo-Russian Exchange Programme in Moscow for six weeks; United Nations Joint Logistics Centre (UN JLC) Training at Brindisi, Italy; UNICEF Global Training of Trainers Training on Emergency Preparedness and Response at UNICEF Headquarters, New York; P²D Trainer’s Training for Professionals by UNICEF Global Trainers and several Training of Trainers Programmes conducted by the Department of Personnel and Training, Government of India.

Prof. Menon worked as Associate Professor (Economics and Planning) at the Maharashtra Institute of Development Administration, Pune from 1986 to 1996 and as Professor (Disaster Management) at the Yeshwantrao Chavan Academy of Development Administration (YASHADA), Pune from 1996 to 2002. He joined UNICEF India Country Office, New Delhi in August 2002 in charge of Emergency Preparedness and Response till August 2005, when he was nominated by the Prime Minister of India as one of the Founder Members of the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), Government of India with the status of a Union Minister of State in the Government of India. He has coordinated the formulation of the National Disaster Management Guidelines on the Management of Earthquakes, Management of Tsunamis, Bank-financed Construction of Housing and Infrastructure, Guidelines on the National Institute of Disaster Management, and on the Role of NGOs in Disaster Management. He worked as Member, NDMA till 27th September 2010.

Prof. Menon has participated and addressed several international Conferences like the Provention Consortium’s Global Forum in Panama; Hurricane Mitch + Ten Anniversary at Guatemala; Twelfth Anniversary of the Kobe earthquake in Kobe, Japan; Anniversary of the Marmara Earthquake in Istanbul; Oslo Policy Forum in Oslo, Norway; Wenchuan Post-Earthquake Reconstruction Workshop in Beijing; Post-Ondoy Disaster Management Strategy Conference in Manila, Philippines; ECOSOC Side Event on MDGs and HFA at the UN Headquarters in New York; Community Practitioner’s Platform Global Advisory Board Meeting at Harnosand, Stockholm; Fourth Asian Ministerial Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction at Incheon, Republic of Korea; Special Session on “Changing Climate, Changing Leadership” as a part of the 55th Session of the Commission on the Status of Women at UN Headquarters, New York; and the 3rd Global Platform organized by UNISDR at Geneva and the World Reconstruction Conference organized by World Bank and GFDRR at Geneva in 2011, etc.

For his contributions in the field of disaster management in India, Prof. Menon was awarded the Skoch Challenger Award 2010 for Disaster Management. He has been a consultant to UNICEF, UNDP, World Bank and ADPC on various aspects of disaster management before joining the Government of India.

He Relinquished charge on 28th Sep 2010.

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