Please join us for a conversation about a newly published book, the Disaster Gypsies: Humanitarian Workers in the World’s Deadliest Conflicts. Author John Norris and Disaster Response expert Linda Poteat will discuss the increasing intersection between relief workers and conflict specialists in the past decade and its implications for policy decisions.
“Disaster Gypsies is a highly readable tour of the sights, scares, and moral tradeoffs that Norris encountered in the earth’s most troubled places. With a meticulous eye for detail, he offers a kind of ‘biography of a humanitarian,’ casting insight on democracy promotion and nation building at a time when we desperately need his hard-won wisdom.” –Samantha Power, Pulitzer Prize winning author of A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide
Featured Speakers:
John Norris, Chief of Political Affairs, United Nations Mission in Nepal
Linda Poteat, Senior Program Manager for Disaster Response, InterAction
Moderated by: Anita Sharma, Director, ENOUGH
Tuesday, May 22, 2007 Program: 3:30pm to 5:00pm Admission is free.
Center for American Progress 1333 H St. NW, 10th Floor Washington, DC 20005 Map & Directions
Nearest Metro: Blue/Orange Line to McPherson Square or Red Line to Metro Center
RSVP for this Event
For more information, please call 202.741.6246.
Biographies
John Norris is the chief of political affairs with the United Nations Mission in Nepal. He previously served as the Washington Chief of Staff for the International Crisis Group while conducting a wide range of field work in Asia, Africa, and the Balkans. John was also the Director of Communications for the U.S. Deputy Secretary of State, and worked at the U.S. Agency for International Development both as a speechwriter and a field relief worker in Rwanda, Bosnia and elsewhere.
Linda Poteat is the Senior Program Manager for Disaster Response in the Humanitarian Policy and Practice Unit at InterAction. She has recently returned from ten years in the field including postings in Russia, the Balkans, eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, and Sierra Leone. At InterAction, Linda facilitates the complex emergency working groups, such as Sudan, DRC, and Afghanistan, and also manages the civil-military portfolio. She is an adjunct professor at George Washington University in the Elliott School of International Affairs.
Anita Sharma directs ENOUGH, a new initiative of the Center for American Progress and the International Crisis Group to abolish genocide and mass atrocities. She most recently served as governance advisor in Indonesia with the Office of the United Nations Recovery Coordinator and has held international posts in Indonesia, Iraq, Jordan, and Kosovo with the International Organization for Migration (IOM). In the United States, she directed the Conflict Prevention Project at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and has also worked as the research director for the Role of American Military Power Project and the Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict.