India Sonjai Kumar, CMIRM, Global Ambassador The impact in India is relatively low compared to other developed countries because the country took early mitigating action such as screening international passengers, closing the international boundaries, wearing masks and national lockdown. The next three-six months will be more challenging because the ‘fire is now in different parts of the forest’ and in the absence of medicine; there could be a high risk of engulfing. As containment is the only prevention, it seems that longer isolation is the only potent mitigation available, but this is expensive and damaging in economic terms. We need to choose. Human resource is the driver of the entire economy, so it’s availability is the key consideration. As long as human resources are not available in all key sectors, the economy will not churn. International dependence for the raw material will remain a challenge till the time, the global economy starts coming back on the rails. Food is the key human fuel, this I think that the country will manage given the vast fertile land in the country; some of the other countries depending on import for food will face real challenges given the world is not churning. I think that there are challenges with the current risk management framework. It’s like defining the boundaries of the game and leaving the players to adhere to the rules of the game. The referee (CRO) can only raise the flag. The development of the risk management world between 2008 and 2019 did not bear enough fruits to reduce the impact. The future time will not give enough time to the human race to learn different risk management techniques after every big event over 10 to 15 year’s time. We need to have a leak proof risk management framework that works in every situation. Having such a framework is more important than a ‘Mission to Mars”; I think, it is more important to have “Save the Earth”. Let’s learn from Covid-19, what stopped the world reacting way back in December 2019 when the risk first surfaced? The emerging risk philosophy clearly says to start preparing when you start seeing risk is coming. It did not even require scanning the horizon, the risk was there? Why our risk management framework does not have triggers when response has to be taken rather than leaving to the decision makers to take a decision? We lost precious time. Barring in the countries where Covid-19 reached in January and February, the world was waiting to spread the fire further and it did. Why don’t our risk management frameworks have buttons which prompt taking immediate actions rather than leaving the actions for the decision makers? It’s like having an immediate sprinkler system as soon as a fire is visible or smoke is there. If we need to protect the world for the next disaster that may come anytime in the presence of global warming, we need to tighten up the risk management framework that everyone must agree as a part of national constitution. The losses to human life and economic cost are enormous, we have to have a sprinkler system and decision making cannot be left to choice. In the month of March, we were heading to a crisis situation and world started doing the crisis management. Why did risk management fail? Risk management should be like a doctor who can prescribe the medicine which patient takes and is not left to his choice. There is definitely a value in professionally trained risk managers in a situation which is catastrophic to the world. On one hand you can apply the tools and techniques that you have learnt but also able to identify the gaps. As I said, a risk manager fails if he is not able to raise the flag at the right time and right place but the entire risk management system fails when flags are not acted upon.
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