Cross-Sector Partnerships in Managing Disasters: Experiences from the United States

Abstract

Historically, emergency management has been a collaborative effort in the United States. Disasters were mostly handled locally by community organizations in the early years of twentieth century, however the picture began to change as the damage inflicted by disasters escalated. Focusing events triggered action in federal government, which ended up with numerous policy initiatives and creation of well-known organizations such as FEMA and DHS. Nevertheless, importance of nongovernmental actors has not declined. Today, about 85 % of critical infrastructure is owned and operated by the private sector. Also, FEMA embraces the ‘whole community’ approach in managing disasters. In this approach government agencies, individuals, families, households, businesses, nongovernmental organizations, academia and experts, and neighborhoods are integral parts of the community; and all of them have their own roles and responsibilities to a certain extend. Having so many stakeholders, building partnerships, and working together in a horizontal (nonhierarchical) setting is called collaborative emergency management. In collaborative emergency management all these stakeholders have certain responsibilities in managing emergencies. Emergency management organizations identify these roles and responsibilities and assign them to various partners. Resources, knowledge, and expertise of the partnering organizations are invaluable for emergency managers. For example, emergency management agencies rely on retail companies for timely distribution of certain resources to disaster stricken areas. The logistic capacity and speedy of delivery of such firms are unimaginable for the public sector. As the communities in the U.S. get more complex and threats such as climate change become more visible, emergency management system will likely to rely on collaborative ties with nongovernmental actors in the future.