# Presentation: 203821

## The Professionalization of Emergency Management

- The background, training, and the fundamental role of emergency managers, within the practice of emergency management, has continued to evolve

- Comparative Emergency Management: Session 2

## EM Academic Programs

- Have grown from fewer than 10 (1990s) to hundreds of programs (late 2000s)
- Programs offered at the certificate, bachelor, master, and doctorate levels
- A staggering and growing range of courses available
- However...
- Compared to other disciplines, emergency management is still in its infancy

- Comparative Emergency Management: Session 2

## Domestic Focus

- Systems
- Practice
- Hazards and hazard profiles
- Motivating influences and philosophies
- Organizational and governmental structures
- Terminology
- Case studies
- Lessons learned

- Comparative Emergency Management: Session 2

## US Emergency Management

- Among the most advanced and best funded systems in the world
- However...
- Practitioners do not yet possess all of the answers to problems with hazards and risk
- The United States’ experience is but one of hundreds that exist in the world

- Comparative Emergency Management: Session 2

## Lessons from Abroad

- The Netherlands
- Japan
- Israel
- Australia and New Zealand
- India
- Thailand

- Comparative Emergency Management: Session 2

## Emergency Management Profession

- “charged with creating the framework within which communities reduce vulnerability to hazards and cope with disasters”
- 					(Blanchard, 2007)

- Comparative Emergency Management: Session 2

## Foreign Systems Discounted

- Shortage of courses, resources, and instructors
- The historical evolution of emergency management in the United States
- Perspective

- Comparative Emergency Management: Session 2

## Growth in Interest in Comparative Emergency Management

- Greater involvement by the nongovernmental and private sectors in domestic emergency management operations
- Increasing strength, size, and number of natural disasters
- The prospect of disaster-driven global instability
- The increasing likelihood of scenarios where domestic emergency managers must work with the international emergency management community

- Comparative Emergency Management: Session 2

## Greater involvement by the nongovernmental and private sectors in domestic emergency management operations

- International, nongovernmental, nonprofit, and private organizations augment deficient national capacities
- These organizations have attained proficiency in their areas of expertise, and are regarded as being appropriately equipped, adequately staffed and trained, and often very well funded
- Little has been done to formalize such a system in the United States

- Comparative Emergency Management: Session 2

## Increasing strength, size, and number of natural disasters 

- Climate change is occurring; points to:
- Global increases in disaster size, severity, and number
- Change in the catastrophic potential
- Change in the nature of the nation’s hazard profile
- Greater need for regional cooperation

- Comparative Emergency Management: Session 2

## The prospect of disaster-driven global instability 

- Climate change has become a national security issue
- There exists a link between emergency management and development
- Climate change will create conditions in the affected countries that contribute to a loss of stability affecting the United States both directly and indirectly
- Recovery that follows major disasters must allow for a viable future

- Comparative Emergency Management: Session 2

## Domestic emergency managers must work with the international emergency management community

- United States maintains two distinct emergency management systems
- Domestic
- International
- A disconnect exists between the two
- Domestic crises have international implications

- Comparative Emergency Management: Session 2