Mihir R. Bhatt is director of the All India Disaster Mitigation Institute (AIDMI). He is a Senior Fellow of the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative since 2007.

Mihir is redefining disaster mitigation by viewing it as a continuous process of social development and community participation rather than as a short-term rescue and relief effort. His organization, the AIDMI, is an action-learning center, which is addressing disaster risk management from the victim’s point of view and introducing a long-term social security component in the process.

He advises Climate Development Knowledge Network’s work on climate compatible development in nine states of India with focus on urban resilience, green finance, and renewable energy at subnational level. Mihir is recently invited to join independent panel of INGO Accountability Charter to review accountability of international civil society. He chairs Duryog Nivaran, a South Asian network on alternative thinking on disaster risk reduction.