Improving community-based preparedness, strengthening local organisations, developing knowledge transfer and capacity-building programmes are required for making the disaster management activities effective, a policy report has suggested. Dr Alistair D B Cook, an international scholar on disaster relief programme, presented the highlights of the report at a public lecture on ‘Complex Humanitarian Emergencies and Disaster Management in Bangladesh: 2017 Rohingya Exodus’. Dr Alistair is also the coordinator of Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief Programme at NTU in Singapore.