This meeting will be conducted via Zoom.

If you would like to visit our meeting, please contact us by email on rotaryclubcentralmelbourne@gmail.com or phone 0455-858-996 and request log-in details.

The meeting will commence at 7:40am and conclude no later than 8:45.

Christopher Lamb: Myanmar Today

Christopher Lamb will provide a brief review of the current situation in Myanmar, following the military takeover on 1 February this year and the imprisonment of the democratically elected leadership, including Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. The Australian economic adviser to the democratic government, Prof Sean Turnell of Macquarie University, was arrested at the same time and the Australian Government’s attempts to secure his release have so far been unsuccessful. Chris will follow the review with some points about the country’s future and the role which Australia might play.

Christopher is the president of the Australia Myanmar Institute, a non-governmental organisation with over 1500 adherents in Myanmar, Australia and other countries. He is a retired Australian diplomat, having worked for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade from 1968-2000. In that time, he served as Ambassador to Myanmar (Burma) from 1986-89 and to Yugoslavia, Romania and Macedonia from 1997-2000. After that he worked as chief diplomat with the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) in Geneva (2000-2010).

In Geneva he helped develop IFRC’s policy on Humanitarian Diplomacy.  This policy describes the role of humanitarian diplomats as persuading decision-makers and opinion leaders to act, at all times in the interests of vulnerable people and with full respect for fundamental humanitarian principles.

He is now an adviser to IFRC and to the Australian Red Cross as well as several other National Societies (including the Myanmar Red Cross), concentrating on the resolution of political questions and the skills required for humanitarian diplomacy. He is also an associate professor in the School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Melbourne.

As president of the Australia Myanmar Institute Chris works actively with a wide variety of counterparts in Myanmar from government, business, civil society and academia.

He is a graduate of the Australian National University, with degrees in Law and Arts (Political Science), and lives in Melbourne.