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ACTIVITY REPORT

TRAINING OF TRAINERS COURSE ON BUSINESS CONTINUITY MANAGEMENT

18-20 July 2018

Galle Face Hotel, Colombo, Sri Lanka

Organized by Sri Lanka Preparedness Partnership (SLPP) Under Asian Preparedness Partnership (APP)

Contents

1. Background ............................................................................................................ 3

2. Objectives .............................................................................................................. 3

3. Participants ............................................................................................................ 4

4. Workshop proceedings .......................................................................................... 5

4.1 Opening Remarks .............................................................................................. 5

4.2 Disaster impacts on SMEs and business sector in Sri Lanka ............................... 6

4.3 Disaster Preparedness Assessment and Damage Assessment Exercises ............ 7

4.4 Business Continuity Management Modules ...................................................... 7

4.5 Training for Instructors .................................................................................... 10

Annex 1: Agenda ...................................................................................................... 11

Annex 2: Curriculum ................................................................................................. 14

Annex 3: Final list of participants ............................................................................. 19

Annex 4: Business Resilience Assessment Exercise – summarized results ................ 21

1. Background

The Sri Lanka Preparedness Partnership (SLPP)1 in collaboration with the Asian

Disaster Preparedness Center (ADPC), the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce and

government of Sri Lanka (Ministry of Irrigation & Water Resource Management and

Ministry of Disaster Management) with the support of Bill & Melinda Gates

Foundation (BMGF), organized a training of trainers (ToT) on Business Continuity

Management (BCM) in Colombo, Sri Lanka from 18th-20th July 2018. Oxfam Sri

Lanka also provided financial assistance for the training.

The ToT on BCM was designed to promote awareness and knowledge of the benefits

and key processes of BCM as part of overall efforts for building business resilience.

The training aimed to equip the participants to deliver BCM training for micro, small

and medium sized enterprises (MSMEs) especially as part of enhancing their value

chain and/or corporate social responsibility and environmental sustainability

programs.

The technical component of the BCM training was facilitated by the iPrepare

Business team with support from the ADPC Sri Lanka Country staff who assisted in

contextualizing the training context. The training included an introduction to the

concept of business resilience and experience of iPrepare Business in promoting and

utilizing BCM as a tool to enhance the resilience of business, particularly SMEs.

2. Objectives

Recognizing the pertinent challenges in a changing climate faced by the private

sector and governments, the three-day ToT aimed to increase understanding and

knowledge of business resilience, with a special focus on business continuity

management (BCM) among senior officers/ managers from the private sector

networks/organizations and the public sectors. Through the event, it is expected

that the participants will be better understand the importance of BCM and develop

action plans on how to spread the BCM practice within and beyond organizations

toward resilient society in next six (6) months after the ToT. Then, they can

ultimately play a leading role in building business resilience in their institution and

the country.

1 The Sri Lanka Preparedness Partnership (SLPP) has been formed under the purview of Asian Preparedness

Partnership (APP) for preparedness for emergency response. The program will help in improving the inter- organizational coordination by engaging the Local Humanitarian Organizations and Institutions to have increased dialogue with the National Governments and Inter-Agency Networks through partnerships, exchange of information and knowledge resources, training, and networking opportunities.

The specific objectives of the ToT were:

 To understand government policies and institutional mechanism on disaster

risk management in Sri Lanka and to promote strategic partnership for public

and private sectors engagement for proactively integrating business resilience

as part of their core organizational or corporate strategies;

 To develop participant knowledge on concepts, principles and steps of BCM

 To develop a first draft of Business Continuity Plan (BCP) for their individual

organizations; and

 To outline pragmatic action plans for rolling out training on BCM

3. Participants

Participants were comprised of representatives from the following target groups:

 Senior representatives/Managers from private companies who are having

MSMEs in their supply chains at the local levels, large corporations and

representatives from District Chambers

 Senior Officers from government agencies responsible for private sector

development /MSME promotion as well as disaster risk management such as

Ministry of Industry and Commerce and Ministry of Disaster Management

 Local NGOs engaged in MSME development

The final number of participants totalled 33 (8 Female, 25 Male). A list of final participants is included in Annex X of this report.

4. Workshop proceedings

4.1 Opening Remarks

The welcoming remarks of the forum were

delivered by Mr. Chandrarathna D Vithanage, Senior

Assistant Secretary General Ceylon Chamber of

Commerce (pictured right). He noted the impacts of

disasters in terms of business disruption,

particularly for SMEs and the profound and long

term impacts on society and livelihoods. He

highlighted the aims of the ToT in raising awareness

among larger enterprises to enhance their own

Business Resilience and in turn transfer knowledge

to SMEs.

Ms. Nirmala Fernando, Program Manager of ADPC delivered additional remarks

explaining about the work of the Sri Lanka Preparedness Partnership (SLPP) in the

wider context of the regional Asian Preparedness Partnership (APP) and the

importance of including private sector and business in disaster preparedness

alongside more conventional stakeholders from government and NGO/civil society.

Mr. Thajudeen, Additional Secretary, Ministry of Industry

and Commerce (pictured left) delivered a Key Note

speech in which he highlighted two major gaps for SME

resilience in Sri Lanka: Firstly, recovery planning as well as

the need for a comprehensive risk information database

including damage and losses following disasters. He

noted some initiatives which had been taken to address

the gaps: build database/geographical information on

SMEs together with Department of Census and statistics

as well as effort to improve disaster recovery policy (in

collaboration with UNDP).

In addition, Dr. S. Amalanathan. Director General, Disaster Management Centre

(DMC), Ministry of Irrigation, Water Resource Management and Disaster

Management (pictured below) provided a Key Note speech. He noted that the PDNA

undertaken in the country following floods and landslides in 2017 captured damage

and losses of industry commerce. In turn, recovery planning for infrastructure sector

at national level has been undertaken. Nonetheless, there are still notable gaps in

private sector engagement for disaster risk management which need to be

addressed by government together with businesses themselves.

Next, Dr. Buddhi Weerasinghe, Disaster Risk Reduction & Capacity Building Specialist,

ADPC briefed the participants on the session plan and the ToT contents. Before the

technical modules of the training workshop begin, the participants completed a pre-

test assessment.

4.2 Disaster impacts on SMEs and business sector in Sri Lanka

In order to contextualize the need for implementing BCM in the Sri Lankan context,

Dr. Buddhi delivered a session which provided ‘’Overview of disaster impacts on

SMEs in Sri Lanka and the potential for building their business resilience’’. As well as

providing an introduction to DRM theory and terminology, the presentation

informed participants on the impact of disasters on businesses in global terms,

effects of disasters on SMEs in Sri Lanka, as well possible interventions to build

resilience of SMEs in Sri Lanka to disaster.

Next, a representative from the Sri Lankan private sector Mr. Mubin Sanoon, ERM /

BCM Secretariat, Dialog telecommunication