A Brief Note On Inter Agency Coordination And Collaborations Impact The Success Of A Humanitarian Relief Operation

Every year, there are approximately 150,000 deaths and 200 million people affected by natural disasters and humanitarian crises (Thomas, 2003). Natural disasters alone, which include various occurrences, cause substantial disruptions such as the temporary displacement of more than five million people. According to the Fritz institute, statistics show that uprooted people from humanitarian crises such as civil conflict and war is greater, with an average of 13 million refugees and 20 million internally displaced people each year. As the biggest worldwide participants in the relief effort in the global community, disaster relief organizations are the forerunners of the help supplied to people affected by catastrophic events.

Organizations over the past few decades have come to realize two things, there are a limited number of people in the government that are able to respond to natural disasters or large scale disaster effectively and that the government only has so many available resources to offer during a time of crisis. Another fact is, that private sector companies and non-profit entities, such as the Red Cross, have the ability to be more prepared due to their vast network of stores and distribution centers and their leisure, they indeed do have a unique responsibility

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) would become the central point-of-contact within the national government in responding to incidents. Since formation in 1979, FEMA’s core missions were to enhance the government’s ability to survive a foreign attack, and to assist state and local authorities in disaster response (Carafano, 2005). And while the two core missions seem heterogenous in scope at times from an outside perspective, the biggest difference between the two tasks is duration. A man-made disaster may be over in a matter of minutes as compared to a hurricane lasting several days, but in both instances the road to recovery is long. In order to streamline response and recovery in either scenario, FEMA was reorganized with new directives to support comprehensive emergency management practices (CRS, 2006). Today, FEMA provides the standard approach and guidance that many local communities may not have due to funding, training, and

Supplies could be needed in one area, but without communication that area might not be able to reach out for those supplies. Communication amongst first responders is important for information sharing, so that information can flow between different jurisdictions and agencies. When looking at the efforts of first responders, communication is the one constant variable, which without communication all efforts would be in vain. (Newman & Clarke, 2008) The National Incident Management System (NIMS) places an emphasis on the importance of communication when dealing with response efforts. The National Incident Management System shows how having a unified command systems can benefit the response efforts to disaster. However, without proper and efficient communication, a unified command system cannot proceed efficiently.

Disaster relief operations are complex systems having more to them than just a response mechanism. They require a significant amount of pre-planning.

UNDAC is an international emergency response system within the UN. As scenes from Hurricane Katrina flooded the international news overwhelming support was offered from all around the globe during Katrina however frustration grew as bureaucratic entanglement hindered or prevented most aid. Though late to accept assistance the eventual involvement of UNDAC teams in Katrina has increased relations with global response agencies that will in the future should increase the utilization of foreign aid (OCHA, 2015). This aspect of Katrina influences has however remained untested as the United States has not experienced a natural disaster on the same scale as Katrina therefor has not required outside assistance as of

Mutual aid agreements are essential for allocating resources, equipment, and personnel between jurisdictions through intrastate, interstate, private organizations, and nongovernmental organizations agencies in the event of an emergency situation that exceeds the capabilities of the local agencies. Intrastate agencies mobilized by a mutual aid agreement consist of resources within the state that can provide support to the requesting department. During catastrophic events, interstate sources activated through a mutual aid agreement are comprised of resources from other states that are able to support the operations required when state resources are incapable of providing adequate aid. Private-sector organizations, nonprofit organizations, and nongovernmental organizations provide additional support in times of crisis when the organization has necessary resources to sustain operations. Emergency situations that may arise and benefit from the resources established in an existing mutual aid agreement include mass casualty incidents, fire and law enforcement situations, natural disasters such as hurricanes and tornadoes, and terrorist attacks.

The leader needs to instill urgency into the workers and volunteers of the ARC. Taking an organization that’s on its knees requires great cooperation, initiative, and willingness to make sacrifices from many people (Kotter, 2011). Based on the case study, the ARC lacks all these characteristics for change to occur. It needs to look how to improve its response times, how to become more efficient in collecting denotations and how to prioritize and quickly distribute the donations it receives in a fair and efficient manner. It needs to hold its leaders to a higher standard that will instill a culture of high moral standard in its employees and volunteers. Once the nation sees a change in the behavior of the ARC they will be more willing to give donations and their time to support disaster relief efforts.

The terrorist strikes in New York City on September 11, 2001 resulted in one of the largest disaster recovery and cleanup trials in United States history. The recovery efforts hit an expected 91,500 workers which included aides operating in and throughout ground zero. (Ekenga, Scheu, Cone, Stellman & Farfel pg. one yr. 2011). This paper analyzes the many types of items recovery organizations were facing at that time. Many recovery issues that had happened were designed and prepared for "on paper". However, due to the research, there was a lack in multiple groups after the 9/11 attacks that had even showed little improvement towards their recovery plans. Also, the incident presented many un-known issues that had created tremendous difficulties

is the way an organization can prepare for and aid in disaster recovery. It is an arrangement agreed

The disaster which hit the Maricopa County in the State of Arizona in September 2014 was a major disaster that necessitated the community preparedness for leading successful response and a prompt recovery. Besides emergency managers, many officials and the private are involved in the processes. Some of these stakeholders are public health, public safety, and municipal officials. Collaboration is needed for getting all those involved in the processes to interact accordingly. This paper addresses the major collaboration strengths between emergency responders, public health, public safety, and municipal officials to deliver accurate response and recovery during the event, the main weaknesses of the collaboration among all those that were involved in the efforts, and recommendations for improving the collaboration between the stakeholders.

Disasters are human made or natural and occur sudden and unexpected. As disasters cannot be prevented, government has to be prepared for any emergency situation. According to Stanhope and Lancaster (2014), there are four stages in the disaster management: Prevention, Preparedness, Response and Recovery. According to Stanhope and Lancaster (2014, p 250), public health professionals study disaster effects on populations while American Red Cross work with local and other communities in preparedness, response and recovery phase of disaster.

This information will be used to establish priorities and develop an incident action plan. Resources and capabilities are employed based on the size, scope, nature and complexity of the incident. Should the disaster exceed the local governments, they would request assistance through mutual aid and assistance agreements, the State, or the Federal Government. Mutual aid agreements establish the roles and responsibilities of both parties, the procedures for requesting assistance and communication protocols.

Collaboration involves various groups or groups of people working together to accomplish a desired outcome. It is a bit like teamwork. By strengthening connections during an emergency crisis, you have the ability to be more effective, faster, produce more, and have more personnel available. Collaboration offers more innovation and experience to a situation. This paper will discuss the roles of those that were involved in the collaborative efforts of FEMA. The basic reasoning for this paper is to provide knowledge and understanding the experience of emergency management and collaboration that took place during Hurricane Sandy.

Communication is widely regarded as one of the most essential elements in successfully managing an emergency situation. The dissemination of information, which is both timely as well as accurate, to the parties concerned goes a long way to lend a hand in ensuring that the recovery activities in an emergency situation, together with its management takes place effectively. For that reason, five critical assumptions are used to provide the basis of disaster management strategy.