Welcome to Human Rights Lunch Online with Matthew Scott from the Raoul Wallenberg Institute, on "Building resilience to pandemic risk. A human rights-based approach to anticipatory action and work at the humanitarian-development nexus". Human Rights Lunch Online is a new digital meeting place initiated by the Lund University Human Rights Profile Area. It is open for everybody!

Here is a presentation of the topic from Matthew: “Within months of the worldwide outbreak of the COVID-19, I became involved in a collaboration with the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) examining legal and policy responses to the pandemic. This project then led to a second collaboration focusing on the human rights impact of pandemic containment measures, with a focus on five municipalities in Zimbabwe. One insight from this research was how containment measures triggered a cascade of adverse human rights impacts. Discussing this insight with OHCHR and DanChurchAid, the idea of exploring the operational utility of the principle that human rights are interdependent and interrelated emerged. The academic article, published recently in the International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, reflects an attempt to develop that idea, with a focus on how a human rights-based approach to cascading risks can help to build resilience. I draw on the political ecological notion of the progression of vulnerability to structure my exploration, and apply this to operational contexts relating to anticipatory action and work at the humanitarian-development nexus. The paper concludes by calling for pilot studies to test and adapt the approach to operational contexts. I see this lunchtime discussion as an opportunity to introduce the ideas to a fresh audience and to hear what you think about the operational relevance of a human rights-based approach in building resilience to pandemic risk. You are most welcome to read the article in advance but I will take the time to talk through key points during the session.”