Re: Draft XG Charter

Hi All
First posting so if you don't recognise me that's why. Have been  
lurking for about 6 weeks. Because of this I'll start with a  
disclaimer that I may have got the "wrong end of the stick" in this  
thread but I venture the following comments anyway.

I would break down the agencies that have emergency management roles  
as Emergency Responders, Emergency Coordinators (or Managers),and  
Welfare Coordiators (or Managers) Many agencies would fulfil several  
of these roles subject to situation and resources (whether  
international or domestic).

> I tend to agree with Paul that we need to ensure that these varying  
> degrees of "crisis response" needs to be covered, especially as it  
> means that a different composition of agencies are involved in the  
> relief effort based on the level of crisis. I prefer to refer to  
> the distinction Paul mentioned as emergency management (fire,  
> police, ambulance, other gov services) vs disaster management (EM +  
> NGOs, Civil society, foreign gov support).
>
> I have understood there are difference in terminology between these  
> various agencies and in will sometimes be hard to get them to agree  
> on one set of terms, sometimes due to politically correct reasons.


I think it would be sufficient to cover these  terms based on their  
intent rather than try and associate specific functions to agencies  
and then try to find a term to fit them especially when these  
agencies have different scope in different countries and territories.

This is best illustrated with the example of "Fire Service". In some  
countries this is restricted to fire response and rescue, in others  
it extends to response and rescue at motor vehicle accidents and in  
others the fire service also performs medical first response (as  
opposed to ambulance) and/or plays a major role in structural  
collapse response. They will in most instances also have  
representation in emergency coordination committees or the like for  
planning and mitigation. Because of this they span both response and  
coordination in the levels that were referred to as emergency  
management and disaster management previously (above) but could not  
effectively be defined purely by fire extinguishment or small scale  
emergencies. With NGOs a similar example could be gained by looking  
at the roles that the Red Cross/Crescent performs in different  
countries. In some countries such as the US they perform an  
enormously diverse range of emergency management functions such as  
rescue, aid distribution and public education, in others their role  
is restricted to only a fraction of these services because of either  
funding, red cross/crescent personnel or because some of the roles  
are filled by other agencies (either governmental or non- 
governmental). The role they play may or maynot be extended in the  
case of a large scale emergency (disaster) subject to the  
requirements and arrangements in that territory or country.

Kind wishes to all

kristin

Received on Wednesday, 8 August 2007 14:26:27 UTC