International Standards

NGO Roles

• As Atlantic hurricane season begins, Florida community foundations prepare permanent disaster funds (AP, May 27, 2024)
• Operational Update: Assessing Needs after Nepal Earthquake, Response to Hurricane Otis Continues, and Mothers Receive Care in Maui (Direct Relief, November 3, 2023)
• IFRC launches groundbreaking financial mechanism to transform disaster response (IFRC Press Release, June 9, 2023): “The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), in collaboration with global professional services firm Aon, Lloyd’s Disaster Risk Facility and the Centre for Disaster Protection, has announced a pioneering approach to disaster response. The groundbreaking risk transfer mechanism will ensure swift and agile support is available when a disaster occurs. This tool provides a backstop for the IFRC’s Disaster Response Emergency Fund (DREF).”

Private Sector Role

• Trailblazers: The Importance of Businesses in Disaster Relief Efforts (Grit Daily, November 9, 2024)
• NFL stadiums will soon double as disaster shelters, federal officials say (The Washington Post, September 25, 2024)
• How Companies are Responding to the Earthquake in Turkey and Syria (Boston College Center for Corporate Citizenship, February 8, 2023)
• Walmart jumps into the eye of the disaster storm (April 8, 2022): “Walmart plans to leverage its juggernaut status — and coast-to-coast footprint — to help U.S. communities better prepare for crises.”
• Disaster risk reduction is a group project (Green Biz, October 8, 2021): “Governments cannot be expected to fund every aspect of disaster resilience (the huge payouts in many countries to blunt the impact of the COVID pandemic notwithstanding). They can fund some items; they can seed or underwrite investments in resilience; and they can ensure equity in spending. But the growing role of public-private partnerships (PPPs), sustainability and disaster bonds, and the increasingly pro-active role of the insurance industry, indicates that the private sector sees an opportunity to participate by taking some of the financing load.”
• Airbnb offers free accommodation for 20,000 Afghan refugees (BBC, August 24, 2021): This story presents an example of how private sector entities support disaster management in ways that go beyond financial support. While this undoubtedly represents free publicity for the organization, it also greatly expands the disaster management capacity of the communities where such participation exists.
• Royal Caribbean Cruise Ship Assists Florida Search and Rescue Teams (Maritime Executive, July 2, 2021): “The cruise ship Explorer of the Seas is the latest member of the team assisting in the efforts underway in Florida after a residential high-rise tower collapse. Owners of the cruise ship, Royal Caribbean International, announced that the ship which is currently idled due to the pandemic would provide temporary housing for some of the hundreds of the search and rescue team members working in the town of Surfside, in northern Miami-Dade Country at the site of the collapsed condominium building.”
• A new national model? Barbershop offers coronavirus shots in addition to cuts and shaves. (The Washington Post, May 30, 2021)

Public-Private Partnerships

• FEMA Resilient Nation Partnership Network (RNPN): The US Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has since 2015 maintained a program dedicated to promoting whole-community participation in community resilience efforts. The RNPN curates a monthly newsletter, the Resilient Nation Roundup, accessed from the linked URL (archives here), as well as a webinar series and quarterly resilience community calls.

Humanitarian Worker Safety and Security

• Why the earthquake caused a “perfect storm” of a crisis in Syria (VOX, February 12, 2023): “A United Nations flag painted upside down on a destroyed building in Sarmada, Syria, condemns a lack of help from the organization.”
• Truce or No Truce: Gangs in Haiti Control Aid Movement (InSight Crime, August 31, 2022)
• Myanmar massacre: two Save the Children staff among dead (The Guardian, December 28, 2021)
• The Aid Worker Security Database, 1997-Present
• ‘Are You Going to Keep Me Safe?’ Hospital Workers Sound Alarm on Rising Violence (KHN, October 11, 2021): This article explains how, during disasters or emergency situations, safety and security concerns of first responders may increase especially when there are political or social implications that embolden perpetrators of violence.
• MSF mourns three colleagues brutally murdered in Ethiopia (June 25, 2021): “Maria Hernandez, our emergency coordinator; Yohannes Halefom Reda, our assistant coordinator; and Tedros Gebremariam Gebremichael, our driver, were travelling yesterday afternoon when we lost contact with them. This morning, their vehicle was found empty and a few metres away, their lifeless bodies.”
• Halo Trust: Afghanistan mine clearance workers shot dead ‘in cold blood’ (BBC, June 9, 2021): Masked gunmen have shot dead 10 mine clearers working for the Halo Trust in Afghanistan’s northern province of Baghlan, and wounded more than a dozen.

Nontraditional Partners

• Private firefighters are helping out in LA wildfires. It raises ethical questions (NPR, January 18, 2025)
• Survivors of Maui fires set up their own aid network as trust in government falters (NBC News, August 15, 2023)
• Native Hawaiians organize aid for Maui fire victims as government lags (Washington Post, August 12, 2023)
• Haiti earthquake: Gang leader offers truce to help relief efforts as death toll passes 2,200 (Sky News, August 23, 2021): This article highlights the need to consider all stakeholders when managing a humanitarian crisis. Criminal gangs in Haiti offer unrivaled access to impacted populations and working with them incentivizes them to reduce their hindrance of aid, but working with criminal gangs has negative associated consequences including legitimization.