International Recovery Platform

The goal of this paper is to examine how government continuity planning contributes to strengthening the public sector’s disaster preparedness, resulting in enhanced resilience of the public sector. The paper analyzes basic principles of government continuity planning using Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS) theory while summarizing recent developments in theory and practice of government continuity planning. Government continuity plans (GCPs) are a recently focused concept in disaster preparedness, compared to business continuity plans (BCPs) in the private sector. Both GCPs and BCPs are designed to prepare governments and businesses for future disasters. The need for BCPs was widely recognized after the Great East Japan Earthquake (GEJE) and Tsunami in 2011, the Floods in Thailand in 2011, and Hurricane Sandy in New York in 2012.

Resilience against infrastructure failure is essential for ensuring the health and safety of communities during and following natural hazard situations. Understanding how natural hazards impact society in terms of economic cost, recovery time, and damages

This report was presented as a statement before the Committee on Homeland Security. It discusses, among other things, FEMA’s progress and challenges related to disaster resilience, response, recovery, and workforce management.