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Building Community Disaster Resilience Through Private–Public Collaboration
ideal. The latter would allow the collection of information that could inform collaborative decision making in real time while informing future collaborative efforts.
Series of research and demonstration projects across the nation could be conceptualized as living laboratories, providing opportunities for both researchers and practitioners, and could be designed and undertaken with the explicit goal of documenting effectiveness, costs, and benefits—and the metrics for these variables—and to provide longitudinal and comparative data for future efforts. Below is a set of research initiatives that could be targeted for investment by the DHS and others interested in deepening knowledge on resilience-focused private–public sector collaboration.
Investigate factors most likely to motivate businesses of all sizes to collaborate with the public sector to build disaster resilience in different types of communities (for example, rural and urban).
Focus research on how to motivate and integrate community-based, faith-based, and other nongovernment organizations—including those not crisis oriented—into resilience-focused collaboration.
Focus research on how the emergency-management and homeland security sectors can be moved toward a “culture of collaboration” that engages the full fabric of the community in enhancing resilience.
Focus research on ways to build capacity for resilience-focused private–public sector collaboration.
Focus on research and demonstration projects that quantify risk and outcome metrics, enhance disaster resilience at the community level, and document best practices.
Focus on research and related activities that produce comparable nationwide data on both vulnerability and resilience.
Establish a national repository and clearinghouse, administered by a neutral entity, to archive and disseminate information on community resilience-focused private–public sector collaboration models, operational frameworks, community disaster-resilience case studies, evidence-based best practices, and resilience-related data and research findings. Relevant stakeholders in all sectors and at all levels should convene to determine how to structure and fund this entity.
A nation is resilient when it is made up of resilient communities. Private–public collaboration is a key step for building such resilience.
