Chile’s wildfires put the country’s new National Disaster Prevention and Response System to the test — and exposed the urgent need to strengthen a prospective, prevention-focused approach to risk. In this radio interview with Christian Pino Lanata and Karla Rubilar on Radio Agricultura, we discussed what the emergency revealed about institutional readiness and the cultural shift required to move from reactive response to genuine prevention.
Key Topics
How Chile’s wildfires tested the new National Disaster Prevention and Response System
The need for a prospective and preventive approach to disaster risk
Building a culture of prevention beyond emergency response
Cristóbal Mena is a Disaster Risk Reduction and Climate Resilience specialist with over 20 years of experience across Latin America, the Caribbean, and other regions. He designs and implements public policies, risk governance frameworks, and disaster risk and crisis management systems for governments, development banks, and the private sector.
He has served as Deputy Director of ONEMI (Chile's National Emergency Office) and pro-tempore President of PROSUR's Working Group on Disaster Risk Reduction. His international work spans collaborations with the World Bank, GFDRR, UNDAC, INSARAG, CRS, and APEC, among others.
He works at the intersection of policy, institutions, and operations — helping organizations move from plans on paper to genuine readiness.
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