Building Effective Emergency Management Public-Private Partnerships (PPP) for Information Sharing

Recent disasters have highlighted the need for effective and proactive partnerships between public emergency responders and the “Whole Community” to assist in all phases of disaster management. This paper examines the importance of reliable, credible, and accessible information that can support the private sector and the “Whole Community” in times of disaster. It is shown that community resilience is enhanced through a shared, real-time “common operating picture”, explicit linkages, and enhanced information sharing. Business Emergency Operations Center (BEOC) designs are compared and contrasted and recommendations are put forth. Optimal Public Private Partnerships for information sharing identified. It is shown that achieving disaster resilience involves government and businesses sharing potential risks, as well as identifying disaster consequences, priorities, information, and capabilities. The conclusions provide guidance that can be used as dual-use roadmap for improving information sharing: on the one hand governments can use the insights of this paper to build new public-private sector programs (or to improve existing programs); on the other hand, the private sector can better understand how to become connected with the information sharing processes of governments.