Arias, Evan Anthony

Evan Anthony Arias is currently the head of the plans and programs unit of the Provincial Planning and Development Office of the Province of Guimaras. He serves as the project coordinator for Guimaras of the Urban Partnerships Program-Philippines, a partnership program implemented with the Canadian Urban Institute funded by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA).

As a member of the technical working group of the Metro Iloilo-Guimaras Economic Development Council (MIGEDC), he has provided technical assistance in the formulation of the Metro Iloilo-Guimaras Spatial Development Framework (MIGSDF). He is also the deputy director of the Guimaras Integrated Coastal Management (ICM) program and coordinates environmental research projects being undertaken by the Scientific Advisory Board to assess the status of the Guimaras environment.

As a result of his 20-year experience in working with local governments, he has extensive knowledge in governance, local economic development, environmental management, community-based tourism development and land use planning. His recent exposures in the field of disaster risk management enabled him to gain expertise in mainstreaming disaster risk reduction in planning. His involvement in various foreign-funded projects enabled him to gain exposure on development models and practices in Canada and Southeast Asia.

Working under Project Sunrise of the Provincial Government of Guimaras, he led the multi-disciplinary team that undertook a rapid damage assessment of the Solar I Oil Spill which later served as the basis in formulating an Oil Spill Rehabilitation Plan.

Evan has a bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering from Central Philippine University, a post baccalaureate degree in Environmental Resource Management from the University of the Philippines in the Visayas and an MBA-Management degree from the International Academy of Management and Economics, Makati City.

He has completed six online courses on Disaster Risk Management from the World Bank Institute and is an accredited online facilitator of WBI. His end-of-course project which focused on the vulnerability of Iloilo City to disasters has served as a reference material for subsequent courses of the WBI and was also used by several government agencies for the assessment of the flooding caused by Typhoon Frank.