Beyond Katrina: Improving Disaster Response Capabilities

As Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and Wilma successively lashed the Gulf Coast starting in late August 2005, nature’s fury exposed serious weaknesses in the United States’s emergency response capabilities. These problems were not simply the failure of particular places or leaders to be ready for disaster but rather an indication of more fundamental issues. These must be addressed if the country is to be ready for serious challenges that may lay ahead, whether severe natural disasters, outbreaks of emergent infectious disease, or renewed terrorist attacks

Disaster Risk Management by Communities and Local Governments

This study refers to disaster risk management at the local level. The topic was selected by the members of the Natural Disasters Network of the Regional Policy Dialogue, and was presented during its 3rd Meeting, on March 6 and 7, 2003. The goal of this document is to achieve a better knowledge of the best practices and benefits that disaster risk management represents for Latin America and the Caribbean. Included are comparative case studies of the Philippines, Colombia, Guatemala and Switzerland. Also discussed are strengths and weaknesses of local organizations in decentralized systems and financial services for disaster risk management.Disasters, Financial Risk, Decentralization, Civil Society, Environment, disaster risk management

Ready or Not? Protecting the Public's Health From Diseases, Disasters, and Bioterrorism, 2011

Highlights examples of preparedness programs and capacities at risk of federal budget cuts or elimination, examines state and local public health budget cuts, reviews ten years of progress and shortfalls, and outlines policy issues and recommendations

To Greener Pastures: An Action Research Study on the Environmental Sustainability of Humanitarian Supply Chains

Purpose: While humanitarian supply chains (HSCs) inherently contribute to social sustainability by alleviating the suffering of afflicted communities, their unintended adverse environmental impact has been overlooked hitherto. This paper draws upon contingency theory to synthesize green practices for HSCs, identify the contingency factors that impact on greening HSCs and explore how focal humanitarian organizations (HOs) can cope with such contingency factors. Design/methodology/approach: Deploying an action research methodology, two-and-a-half cycles of collaboration between researchers and a United Nations agency were completed. The first half-cycle developed a deductive greening framework, synthesizing extant green practices from the literature. In the second and third cycles, green practices were adopted/customized/developed reflecting organizational and contextual contingency factors. Action steps were implemented in the HSC for prophylactics, involving an operational mix of disaster relief and development programs. Findings: First, the study presents a greening framework that synthesizes extant green practices in a suitable form for HOs. Second, it identifies the contingency factors associated with greening HSCs regarding funding environment, stakeholders, field of activity and organizational management. Third, it outlines the mechanisms for coping with the contingency factors identified, inter alia, improving the visibility of headquarters over field operations, promoting collaboration and resource sharing with other HOs as well as among different implementing partners in each country, and working with suppliers for greener packaging. The study advances a set of actionable propositions for greening HSCs. Practical implications: Using an action research methodology, the study makes strong practical contributions. Humanitarian practitioners can adopt the greening framework and the lessons learnt from the implementation cycles presented in this study. Originality/value: This is one of the first empirical studies to integrate environmental sustainability and HSCs using an action research methodology

Evading Emergency: Strengthening Emergency Response Through Integrated Pluralistic Governance

This Article examines the significant governance challenges that arise during responses to public health emergencies and proposes a new multifaceted strategy-integrated pluralistic governance-to address these challenges. Emergency preparedness is an inherently complex problem that entails the integration ofscientific and medical expertise, good logistical planning, and clear laws and policies. The governance function has particular import for public health emergencies because pandemics, hurricanes, and other disasters can have profoundly divisive social and political consequences. Moreover, recent disasters like Hurricane Katrina and the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill revealed an emergency preparedness and response infrastructure in the United States that was broken: starved of necessary resources, beset by problems at all levels of government, and undermined by poor decision making at each of these levels. Governance theories are particularly relevant to addressing the challenges posed by public health emergencies because these theories can help to explain and shape outcomes within complex systems. This Article delineates and explores three categories of governance models: traditional governance models, New Governance models, and diffuse governance models. These models provide insight into existing efforts to govern public health emergencies within and outside of formal emergency response systems and highlight unexplored avenues for strengthening these systems. Integrated pluralistic governance adopts aspects of all three governance models and encourages the development of concurrency, coordination, and redundancy to create a more effective and resilient public health emergency response system

The role of joint training in inter-organizational collaboration in emergency management

Doctoral thesis (PhD) – Nord University, 2021publishedVersio

From Common Operational Picture to Common Situational Understanding : A Framework for Information Sharing in Multi-Organizational Emergency Management

Complex emergencies such as natural disasters are increasing in frequency and scope, in all regions of the world. These emergencies have devastating impacts on people, property, and the environment. Responding to these events and reducing their impact requires that emergency management organizations (EMOs) collaborate in their operations. Complex emergencies require extraordinary efforts from EMOs and often should be handled beyond ordinary routines and structures. Such operations involving multiple stakeholders are typically characterized by inadequate information sharing, decision-making problems, limited situational awareness (SA), and lack of common situational understanding. Despite a high volume of research on these challenges, evaluations from complex disasters and large-scale exercises document that there are still several unsolved issues related to information sharing and the development of common situational understanding. Examples here include fulfillment of heterogeneous information needs, employment of different communication tools and processes with limited interoperability, and information overload resulting from a lack of mechanisms for filtering irrelevant information. Multi-organizational emergency management is an established area of research focusing on how to successfully collaborate and share information for developing common situational understanding. However, the level of complexity and situational dependencies between the involved EMOs create challenges for researchers. An important element for efficient collaboration and information sharing is building and maintaining a common operational picture (COP). Sharing important information is a key element in emergency management involving several EMOs, and both static and dynamic information must be accessible to perform tasks effectively during emergency response. To be proactive and mitigate the emergency impacts requires up-to-date information, both factual information via the COP and the ability to share interpretations and implications through using a communication system for rapid verbal negotiation. The overall research objective is to investigate how stakeholders perceive and develop SA and COP, and to explore and understand key requirements for stakeholders to develop a common situational understanding in complex multi-organizational emergency management.publishedVersio

Preparation for the Novel Crisis: A Curriculum and Pedagogy for Emergent Crisis Leadership

The context for this study is the convergence of global trends and risks, especially environmental and social changes, with the interconnectedness of the modern world leading to new, larger-scale, and unforeseeable crises. This convergence has the potential for a shift from what the author describes as the current resilience paradigm to a new crisis paradigm, labelled the novel crisis. The proportion of the global critical infrastructure that is in private or non-state ownership exacerbates the challenges for crisis management systems and leadership. It means that a wider range of stakeholders will be involved, testing the skills and knowledge of the individuals confronting crises. This coincides with the changes to the nature and provision of Higher Education that are happening already or expected in the future and with changes to employment patterns and student profiles. A case study analyses the immediate impact Hurricane Katrina had on New Orleans in 2005 as an exemplar of the novel crisis. Secondary data are used to explore the organisational response of the authorities and the initiatives and leadership networks that emerged to respond to that catastrophe. There is still a need to improve and invest in conventional crisis management structures but the key to confronting future novel crises will be with the temporary networks that emerge of those with specialist knowledge, connections, or proximity to the event. An appropriate crisis leadership curriculum and pedagogy is developed from the literature and evidence from the case study to meet their needs

CASE 12: Eyes on the Supplies: Improving Canada’s National Emergency Stockpile System (NESS)

The Canadian Federal Government is looking into improving the mobilization capacity of federal emergency supply systems. Edgar Reyes, a consultant at the public health consulting firm Axiom Alliance Health, has been awarded a federal contract to identify solutions to suit this need. The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed gaps in the National Emergency Stockpile System (NESS), which is maintained by the Public Health Agency of Canada. These gaps have affected the government’s ability to address pandemic-related supply shortages. Edgar’s task is to provide recommendations to increase the system’s response capacity. He hopes to isolate actionable areas for review by a future advisory committee and support the development of federal emergency response. Edgar has also been tasked with determining a need and solutions for improving emergency response and supply delivery for Indigenous and remote communities from the NESS. Edgar and his team conduct a roundtable stakeholder meeting with the key stakeholders associated with the NESS to determine common themes and systems-level solutions. Edgar also conducts stakeholder engagements with provincial administrative employees to isolate further gaps in the system. He determines there are significant data gaps, and more investigations will be required to support improvements in NESS mobilization capacity. Edgar manages to identify two specific action items that have their own unique tradeoffs. A key consideration between these alternatives is the potential consequence of excluding Indigenous and isolated community insights from emergency planning and emergency infrastructure development