The Women’s International Network for Disaster Risk Reduction (WIN DRR) Leadership Awards 2025 have been granted to Ms Nashin Mahtani of Indonesia, Director of Yayasan Peta Bencana (Disaster Map Foundation), and Ms Takena Redfern of Kiribati, Acting Director of the Climate Change and Disaster Risk Management Division in the Office of the President of Kiribati, in recognition of their groundbreaking contributions to safeguarding communities across a region that faces the world’s highest disaster losses.
The award winners were announced during the Disaster Resilience Week at the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) in Bangkok. The awards celebrate women’s leadership in reducing disaster risk and building resilient, inclusive communities in Asia and the Pacific and represent the different expertise and experiences that are needed to find solutions to understanding, preventing, and reducing the increasing disaster risk.
This year’s awardees represent two different but equally vital pathways to reducing disaster risk: technology-enabled community participation and inclusive, people-centered governance.
Rising Star Award winner Nashin Mahtani has transformed how disaster information is created and shared across the Global South through innovation. As Director of Yayasan Peta Bencana, she leads the development of one of the world’s largest open-source platforms for community-led disaster risk reduction — now used by over 200 million people across Indonesia and beyond. Her work has shifted disaster risk reduction from top-down alerts to participatory risk governance, enabling residents to co-create verified, real-time risk information for first responders, government agencies, and their communities.
“Disaster resilience is a civic practice,” Ms Mahtani said. “Communities are not passive recipients of warning messages; they shape and create the systems that keep them safe. Their knowledge, leadership, and collective action – strengthened by open, accessible technologies – are what turn early warnings into lifesaving outcomes.”
Excellence Award winner Takena Redfern has been instrumental in advancing inclusive and people-centered disaster risk reduction in one of the world’s most climate-vulnerable countries. In 2025, she led the national launch of the Early Warnings for All (EW4All) initiative in Kiribati and is steering the development of the country’s multi-hazard early warning system roadmap. She champions gender equality and disability inclusion, including the use of disaggregated data, to ensure disaster risk reduction initiatives are equitable and evidence-based.
“Effective disaster risk reduction must reflect the voices and lived realities of people in all their diversity – including those often left at the 'yes';; ;">
The WIN DRR Leadership Awards recognize women’s achievements in disaster risk reduction across the Asia-Pacific region. They form part of the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction’s flagship women’s leadership initiative – the Women’s International Network for Disaster Risk Reduction (WIN DRR), supported by the Government of Australia.
This is the fifth year the awards have been presented. The two categories are the Excellence Award, proudly sponsored by SM Prime Inc., worth US$10,000, and the Rising Star Award, worth US$7,500.
