Biography
Jo da Silva is a Director at Arup where she leads Arup International Development, which she founded in 2007. Her interest in post-disaster contexts began in 1991 when she became a member of RedR, a non-governmental agency providing training and technical expertise after major disasters. She has provided engineering expertise to service refugee camps during the Rwandan genocide, shelter advice following Hurricane Mitch in 1998 and she co-ordinated the construction of 60,000 shelters in Sri Lanka following the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.
In 2007, she has established Arup International Development as a not-for profit business within the Arup Group, and is working in partnership with humanitarian and development organisations (including the Rockefeller Foundation, UNOPS, Habitat for Humanity, Oxfam, the Aga Khan Development Network and the International Federation of the Red Cross) providing strategic advice and technical expertise to help realise the sustainable and resilient communities required to meet today’s global challenges of rapid urbanisation, the uncertainty of climate change and widespread poverty.
