This chapter examines implementation of the fourth principle, which calls on Adherents to establish various strategic crisis management capabilities and to prepare for unknown and unexpected risks that provoke crises. This chapter reports on implementation of provisions in the Recommendation related to strengthening crisis leadership and capacities to detect and make sense of crisis; establishing capacity to scale-up emergency response; and building institutional capacity to design and oversee recovery and reconstruction.
Tracking Progress in the Governance of Critical Risks
Abstract
The Recommendation underscores the need for governments to be able to adapt crisis management approaches to more complex crises where governments co-exist with a larger network of stakeholders and face increased pressure from society and media. The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the importance of integrating the roles of the private sector and civil society into crisis preparedness. In addition, Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine and the broader evolving geo-political context is altering risk scenarios for which strategic crisis managers are actively preparing.
As highlighted by the Recommendation, traditional emergency management based on standard operating procedures, and command and control built on the history of past events may prove insufficient in some cases. New complementary approaches are required to contend with the unexpected and prepare to respond to shocks of an unprecedented nature. While pre-prepared emergency plans triggered by early-warning systems can be effective for familiar contingencies, these should be complemented by more agile partnerships across a multi-stakeholder emergency network, capacities to make sense of complexity and to provide meaning to citizens by renewed crisis communication approaches.
The ultimate responsibility for crisis management lies at the highest levels of government, which has key roles to play spanning from inter-agency co-ordination to decision-making and meaning-making. Indeed, as many past disasters and crises show, political leadership is held accountable for poor crisis management. The 2017 Report called on Adherents to develop their strategic crisis management capacities by training political leaders and by developing and “stress-testing” their capacity to cope with novel and large-scale emergencies.
Effective crisis management is fundamental for maintaining citizen’s trust in government, which is directly affected by how quickly, efficiently and transparently government decisions are taken in a crisis situation. The OECD Survey on the Drivers of Trust in Public Institutions provides evidence indicating a direct correlation between public confidence in pandemic preparedness and trust in national governments (OECD, 2022[1]).
When asked in 2016, slightly under one-half of the Respondents considered they had fully implemented the fourth principle, and the rest considered that they had partially implemented it. This chapter examines the progress of Adherents in strategic crisis management since 2017, exploring how the various elements of these capacities are being addressed.
V. RECOMMENDS that Members [Adherents] develop adaptive capacity in crisis management by co-ordinating resources across government, its agencies and broader networks to support timely decision-making, communication and emergency responses.
To this effect, Members [Adherents] should:
1. Establish strategic crisis management capacities to prepare for unknown and unexpected risks that provoke crises […];
2. Strengthen crisis leadership, early detection and sense making capacity, and conduct exercises to support inter-agency and international co-operation […];
3. Establish the competence and capacities to scale up emergency response capabilities to contend with crises that result from critical risks […];
4. Build institutional capacity to design and oversee recovery and reconstruction plans […].
Source: (OECD, 2014[2])
In addition to the COVID-19 pandemic, 18 out of 27 Respondents reported that they experienced at least one other major crisis since 2017 that they considered was triggered by a critical risk. Pre-existing crisis management arrangements are foundational to many civil contingency events or emergencies, but they might not suffice to contend with the complexities and scale of modern crises that challenge governments. Complementary approaches are required to adapt to and adequately respond to the unexpected dimensions of shocks (including both those arising from known risks and those of an unprecedented nature).
In order to be ready to handle novel and unexpected risks, the Recommendation calls on Adherents to first prepare for known hazards by building a solid foundation for their crisis management arrangements, establishing standard operating procedures, pre-defined emergency plans and clear co-ordination processes. For example, in France, the standard process for crisis management is the same regardless the nature of the crisis (Prime Minister of France, 2019[3]), and this is complemented by a number of theme specific national plans and territorial plans (French Government, 2023[4]).
Most Respondents reported they have developed and published national contingency plans for the main risks identified on public-facing official websites. In Luxembourg, the High Commission for National Protection publishes Infocrise (Luxembourg Government, 2022[5]), in Australia the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet publishes the Australian Government Crisis Management Framework (Australian Government, 2022[6]). This framework underpins the more detailed emergency response plans which Emergency Management Australia also publish on their website (Emergency Management Australia, 2022[7]).
Some Adherents encourage local government to publish their emergency response plans, for example in Colombia the National Disaster Risk Management Unit hosts an online repository of such plans (Unidad Nacional para la Gestión del Riesgo de Desastres, 2022[8]), and in Portugal all emergency response plans at national, regional or local level are, by law, made publicly available on a web-platform (SIPE, 2023[9]).
The Recommendation calls for Adherents to complement these preparedness plans with flexible anticipatory capacities that enable proactive measures to be taken in anticipation of a disaster, which can help reduce its impact on communities and societies. Effective anticipatory capacities build on robust risk assessment and forecasting, as well as on pre-identified triggers linked to financing and resource mobilisation.
Adherents have established systems to monitor crisis situations and identify potential triggers on an ongoing basis. They have built these systems into their strategic crisis management arrangements and have also integrated them into existing contingency plans. These monitoring systems and the triggers they are designed to pick up, when linked with early warning systems, allow for rapid action and early deployment of resources and personnel, in advance of a disaster.
For example, Korea’s Integrated Disaster and Safety Information System combines information on a wide range of physical and societal phenomena from multiple sources to trigger the convening of the country’s Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters during major disasters such as the Pohang earthquake of 2017 and the east coast wildfires of 2019 (MIKTA Disaster Risk Reduction Joint Advocacy Campaign, 2022[10]).
However, Adherents are yet to fully capitalise on the benefits of involving stakeholders outside of national government (such as local communities, civil society organisations, and the private sector) into their anticipatory capacities. Local communities can provide early indications of upcoming events and organise themselves to respond to a crisis, while the private sector can also offer resources and expertise in crisis response. Civil society organisations can provide critical feedback on the effectiveness of the response and advocate for the needs of marginalised communities.
While there have been significant unexpected dimensions to the COVID-19 pandemic, its global scale provided a unique opportunity to ascertain which foundational elements of strategic crisis management capacities were already in place across countries prior to its onset, and which were introduced afterward.
Nearly all Respondents reported that they had implemented human pandemic emergency plans and co-ordination processes prior to outbreaks of COVID-19. A small number of Respondents introduced measures to train key decision makers and officials in strategic crisis management only after the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic. This feature is now reported to be present in nearly all national crisis management systems. Likewise, most Adherents have standard operation procedures, links to global health surveillance and a defined process for co-operating with other countries.
Source: 2022 OECD Questionnaire on the Governance of Critical Risks
Across most Respondents, pandemic preparedness plans had generally focussed on those actions within the remit of ministries and agencies normally charged with leading the response. Among the prevalent measures foreseen in pandemic plans were: quarantine of persons likely to be infected; isolation of infected persons; limits or prohibition of gatherings over a certain threshold number; authority to control the prices of certain products. As the pandemic revealed many gaps in the authorities or the capabilities of these organisations, there is opportunity to revise national planning documents and engage a broader, whole of government approach.
Most Respondents set-up ad hoc crisis management structures during the COVID-19 pandemic to provide co-ordination on specific measures, in addition to existing crisis management mechanisms. These ad hoc arrangements contributed to enhanced communication across sectors, but made the division of labour and lines of responsibility less clear (OECD, 2022[11]).
Nearly all Respondents (24/27) had developed pandemic response plans prior to COVID-19 using the information contained in their risk assessment of a potential human pandemic. Most Respondents indicated their pandemic plans showed a good coverage of epidemic control measures (including provisions linked to communication across government and the provision of information / advice to the public). These measures were widely regarded as useful for dealing with COVID-19, as seen in Figure 5.2. However, not all Respondents found the measures included in their plans to be useful for dealing with the specific challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic.
While isolation and quarantine measures and planning for vaccines were included in the pandemic preparedness plans of nearly all Respondents, around one-third indicated such procedures had not been as useful for dealing with the impacts of COVID-19 as some of the more general provisions. A potential cause for this, was the fact that most pandemic preparedness plans were built around an influenza pandemic scenario and some Respondents found that focus to be less useful for dealing with COVID-19, given the specific characteristics of the virus. Nevertheless, Respondents showed adaptive capacity in crisis management by leveraging existing authorities or seeking new authorities / powers when the former were not sufficient for dealing with the challenges presented by COVID-19.
International dimensions of pandemic response, such as travel restrictions, assistance to citizens abroad, screening of travellers and repatriation were infrequently included in pre-existing pandemic plans. This finding is a surprise given these specific dimensions of pandemic planning are covered by the International Health Regulations and have been the subject of extensive guidance from the World Health Organisation.
Source: 2022 OECD Questionnaire on the Governance of Critical Risks
The Recommendation calls on Adherents to complement these core capacities with flexible resources that bolster resilience, enabling reaction to new, unforeseen and complex events. Respondents have generally adopted modular set-ups with cells or working groups which can be expanded or abolished as a crisis situation evolves. An example of such practice are the crisis cells and their working groups established in Luxembourg under the co-ordination of the High Commission for National Protection (OECD, 2022[12]).
In addition to modular crisis management structures, Adherents demonstrated strong capacity for the exercise of regulatory flexibility during the COVID-19 pandemic that was key to scaling-up response capacity. In multiple instances governments exercised flexibility in making complex decisions to drastically shorten timeframes in regulatory, legislative and policymaking processes, or to relax normal regulatory controls. For example, the use of telemedicine had been limited in most Adherents before the pandemic, but in early 2020 nearly all Adherents moved quickly to promote the adoption and use of remote care services, including by changing provider payment systems and allowing tele-prescriptions. The dramatic increase in teleconsultations partially offset reductions of in-person consultations and helped maintain some level of care for chronic illnesses, while providing a means for potentially infected persons to consult a heath professional without exposing the public (OECD, 2023[13]).
In the United Kingdom, the government put in place emergency primary legislation (the Coronavirus Act) in March 2020, as well as 70 pieces of secondary legislation that grant police, immigration officers and public health officials new powers to detain potentially infectious persons and prohibit and restrict gatherings and public events for the purpose of curbing the spread of COVID-19. Regulations for public and health services were changed to allow streamlined approaches (such as to medical prescribing); and temporary relaxations of competition legislation in defined areas - such as ensuring better co-ordination of food supply (OECD, 2020[14]).
The work of economic regulators was also an integral part of the COVID-19 response across Adherents, as evidenced in the report published by the OECD Network of Economic Regulators (NER) reviewing the emergency measures taken by economic regulators during the COVID-19 pandemic to ensure continuity of services in network sectors, as well as to adjust regulatory practices and adapt governance arrangements. Respondents noted many examples of regulatory flexibility related to increasing response capacity. For example, in the United States and the United Kingdom, final year medical students were allowed to provide (mostly non-clinical) services that usually require professional certification, and medical students in the Czechia and Israel volunteered in hospitals, clinics and call centres to provide surge capacity for the pandemic response (OECD, 2020[15]).
20 out of 27 Respondents also reported, as a core feature of their crisis management arrangements, the authority to commandeer resources from the private sector in times of crisis, although it had not been included in the Recommendation. A few Respondents instituted this authority on a temporary basis. For example, in France, the ‘State of Health Emergency Law’ to address the COVID-19 pandemic empowered the government to enact temporary decrees including authority to requisition certain goods and services, such as protective masks and equipment.
In New Zealand, the Co-ordinated Incident Management System (CIMS) includes all response levels and a formal post-event review recommendations process since 2014. It is reviewed every five years and is in its third edition since July 2020. The CIMS is currently centerer around 3 core principles which are 1) Responsive to community needs, 2) Flexibility and 3) Unity of effort.
Learning from previous events it encourages incident management that accounts for and engages with iwi, hapū, and marae communities for response and recovery. CIMS now relies on holistic and integrated consequence analysis model to ensure all consequences (including those not immediately evident) are considered in any response and recovery. The third edition also expands on the CIMS supporting protocols and systems with the introduction of an "Incident Classification" system through a response level and severity matrix with predetermined categories and descriptors. The classification falls to appointed controllers in co-ordination centres at national, regional, local or incident level. Rules for leadership in the event of multiple controllers being involved are also mentioned, and description of “Governance" and "Strategic Communications” roles are expanded. The current CIMS edition also reorganised CIMS Functions, emphasising for instance the “Safety” function, adding Geospatial
Support and Co-ordination as a transversal support feature of the “Intelligence” function and including Recovery as part of the response process.
A key challenge facing Adherents is why risk governance arrangements, in particular the processes for responding to crises, are challenged by risks that are already known to them. One explanation is recent disasters and crises faced by governments have been characterised by extraordinarily large scale or intensity, unprecedented timing or location, complex or novel nature, or a confluence of these factors. Each factor raises uncertainty about likelihood, consequences and how to manage them effectively.
Source: 2022 OECD Questionnaire on the Governance of Critical Risks
The Recommendation calls on Adherents to support inter-agency and international co-operation through the strengthening of crisis leadership, early detection and sense making capacities.
The COVID-19 crisis provides useful insights into the practice of strategic crisis leadership across Adherents. Centres of Government have played a central role in steering the crisis; a survey conducted by the OECD in 2021, revealed that nearly half of countries responding had increased the number of cross-ministerial co-ordination instances and over a third had created a special unit or co-ordinator within the Centre of Government to respond to COVID-19 (OECD, 2021[17]).
At the start of the pandemic, as the first cases appeared in their country, governments generally used their strategic crisis management structures to provide cross-government co-ordination of the policy responses to the virus. As the situation evolved, many countries also created ad hoc structures to deal with the wide-ranging set of policy challenges that COVID-19 presented their governments (OECD, 2020[18]). Crisis leadership, in the shape of convening and chairing crisis committees at the Centre of Government, generally rested with the head of government and the minister responsible for health (OECD, 2022[11]). However, as the situation evolved, some Respondents opted to appoint co-ordinators charged with steering the countries’ crisis management efforts, helping different ministries and agencies achieve better co-ordination (OECD, 2020[18]). In a few countries, the co-ordinator was appointed from within the existing crisis management institutions. This was the case in Italy, for example, where the head of the Department of Civil Protection, located in the Prime Minister’s office, was the first official designated as special commissioner for the COVID-19 emergency at the start of the pandemic (in January 2020) (OECD, 2020[18]).
Source: (OECD, 2021[19])
Note: The data from this figure contain responses from non-OECD Member countries.
The Recommendation also calls on Adherents to strengthen sense making, the capacity to gather relevant information, understand and describe what is happening under chaotic, uncertain and often dangerous conditions, as well as to projects potential developments of an on-going crisis. Respondents noted what they do to build shared situational awareness in crisis management. Data processing platforms, real-time data collection tools and live sensors, as well as increased data literacy among crisis management personnel and decision makers are all factors driving an increased adoption of data-rich situational awareness and decision support tools. Being able to gather, analyse and visualise vast amounts of data to better understand the scale of crises and model future developments, as well as the level of resilience of critical infrastructure and essential services, are now recognised by many Respondents as core features of modern adaptive crisis management systems.
In Poland, the Government Security Center (RCB) used the GIS COVID-19 system created in March 2020, to support the administration's activities in the fight against COVID-19 pandemic, including supporting the roll-out of the COVID-19 National Vaccination Program and monitoring its progress.
One of the products was a forecasting application simulating the development of the epidemic in Poland based on a model developed by the Interdisciplinary Center for Mathematical and Computational Modelling of the University of Warsaw (ICM UW). The system enhances situation awareness on everything from the location of quarantined individuals to the location of vacant hospital beds as a decision support tool.
The Government Center for Security, together with the Chancellery of the Prime Minister, repurposed the GISCOVID-19 tool into GISBN "National Security". Its purpose is to build situational awareness by monitoring and analysing selected hazard and threat information relevant to national security, ranging from spread of pathogens, to flows of refugees, as well as information on response capacities, such fuel storage reserves. It collects data on disasters, both natural and caused by human activity. It is currently used to monitor the military situation against Ukraine, tracking refugee flows and refugee hosting facilities in the Polish humanitarian efforts, thus strengthening international co-operation.
In the United Kingdom the National Situation Centre (SitCen) within the Cabinet Office has been established to bring data, analysis and expertise together for crisis management. Using the National Security Risk Assessment to adopt a risk informed approach, the SitCen brings together expertise and a range of government, international, local, national and commercial data feeds to provide a holistic picture. The SitCen supports decision makers understand the intersection of multiple risks and provide insights at pace.
Key to this is the SitCen’s data map, which can visualise how data feeds, risks and impacts interact.
This is underpinned by the SitCen’s data strategy, which maps public and private sector data against the United Kingdom’s assessment of critical risks. This supports more effective and rapid deployment of data during crisis response, as well as improving resilience by identifying and addressing data gaps. The SitCen regularly convenes a cross-government network of crisis data experts to support this, and to promote resilience through best practice for using data in crisis response.
Source: (United Kingdom Government – Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA), 2022[20]); (Government Centre for Security (Rządowe Centrum Bezpieczeństwa), Government of Poland, n.d.[21])
The focus of situational awareness initiatives remains on the response phase of crisis management, with much less attention paid to data insights that can underpin recovery efforts. OECD research on the use of open government data throughout the COVID-19 crisis, confirms this, and concludes that governments were not fully prepared or lacked the capacity to release relevant, high-quality datasets with the speed and quality necessary to help address the crisis (González-Zapata et al., 2021[22]).
Another key finding in the 2017 Report concerned the need to strengthen provision of scientific advice to national strategic crisis management systems as a key tool for making sense of crises Adherents face. Since 2017, Respondents have established more structured processes on sharing of multi-disciplinary expertise to make sense of incomplete information before and during a crisis. 24 out of 27 Respondents indicated there are arrangements in place to mobilise such multi-disciplinary expertise, and in particular scientific advice. A good case example is found in Austria in Box 3.36.
In the European Union, the European Natural Hazard Scientific Partnership (ENHSP) is a network of scientific institutions that provides expert advice and rapid response to natural hazards in Europe and beyond (ARISTOTLE-eENHSP, 2023[23]). ENHSP aims to strengthen the monitoring and analysis functions of the European Emergency Response Co-ordination Centre and its Situational Awareness Sector by delivering unique multi-hazard advice service at global level and on a 24/7 operational basis. It builds on a consolidated and multi-disciplinary partnership consisting of world-leading scientific centres in the areas of Earth and Climate sciences, providing operational and monitoring services, early warning and information systems as well as contributing to innovation and research actions.
Political leaders have requested scientific advice and technical expertise to understand and respond to the COVID-19 crisis. Policy decisions on such issues as school closures and vaccinations required information about how likely young children would be infected with the virus and the relative efficacy of natural or vaccine induced immunisation (OECD, 2020[24]). Many Respondents had to set up specific mechanisms at arm’s length from the government (OECD, 2017[25]), though 14 had some link to the centre of government. In many cases, policymakers relied on expertise provided by scientific advisory committees, taskforces or expert groups that pre-dated the crisis. A majority of these committees reported to the President, Prime Minister, and/or the Ministry of Health (OECD, 2022[11]).
During the COVID-19 pandemic a number of Heads of Government established ad hoc institutional arrangements to gather scientific advice. Whether taking the form of scientific task forces, panels of experts or scientific committees, these ad hoc arrangements convened by the governments provided relevant scientific knowledge and data. For instance, in Colombia and Spain ad hoc scientific committees report directly to the President on topics related to epidemiological assessments and produced policy briefs on mitigating the pandemic. Most of the ad hoc committees or panels were created to support line ministries at the national level, in particular ministries of health, home or social affairs. The scientific task forces established in Austria, Chile, France, Greece and perform these duties (OECD, 2022[11]). At the local level, the Special Advisory Committee on the Novel Coronavirus (SAC) in Canada advises Federal/Provincial/Territorial Deputy Ministers of Health across Canada on public health policy related to the COVID-19 outbreak (Government of Canada, 2020[26]).
A limited number of countries have made use of pre-existing institutional structures to gather scientific advice. These structures are advisory bodies or research institutes mandated with the co-ordination of research and the provision of scientific advice in the event of emergencies or crises. In the United Kingdom for instance, the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE), which was one of the first of its kind, is responsible for ensuring that timely and co-ordinated scientific advice is made available to decision makers to support cross-government decisions in the Cabinet Office Briefing Room (COBR) (OECD, 2018[27]; Government Office for Science, 2022[28]). In addition to these above cases, other situations might have involved integrating expert groups into the discussions of existing government official committees or even bringing experts to some of the government meetings at ministerial level, or including interactions between experts and ministers or even heads of state.
During the coronavirus (COVID-19) crisis, both the ad hoc structures as well as already existing institutions focused on estimating the trajectory of the virus over time and determining countermeasures, ranging from confinement, medical management, to the use of protective equipment. For example, Chile leveraged its scientific advisory board to advise the Ministry of Health on public health policies in prevention, diagnosis, care, and communication to face the new challenges from the coronavirus. (Ministerio de Salud, 2022[29]). In addition to advising governments, some scientific advice committees also advised the private sector. In Denmark for instance, the Health Authority provided specific recommendations for different sectors of the economy on measures to safely lift restrictions (Danish Health Authority, 2022[30]). A number of countries established bodies with longer term mandates to drew lessons from the crisis management measures put in place, and have been invited to participate in relevant policy reform processes. For example, in Switzerland, the National COVID-19 Science Task Force, which analysed the impact of government measures on the pandemic in Switzerland (Government of Switzerland, 2022[31]), was replaced by the Scientific Advisory Panel COVID-19, which had opportunity to comment on the revision of the Epidemics Act (Government of Switzerland, 2024).
In addition to advising government, scientific advice committees are also used to advise the private sector. In Denmark for instance, the Health Authority provides specific recommendations for different sectors of the economy on measures to safely lift restrictions (Danish Health Authority, 2022[30]). In Switzerland, the National COVID-19 Science Task Force analysed the impact of government measures on the pandemic (Government of Switzerland, 2022[31]). Beyond scientific advice, some countries draw on the existing institutional structures to gather evidence on the differentiated impacts of the crisis on men and women.
The Federal Government in Austria commissioned the State-level COVID Crisis Co-ordination Committee (GECKO) to provide advice on the basis of scientific findings on the COVID-19 pandemic. The GECKO Commission was made up of scientists from various disciplines as well as experts from interest groups and other organisations, and thus bundled academic and practical expertise from various specialist areas. Its mandate was to provide rapid and impact-oriented action to combat effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, due to the mutational variants and the associated, constant changes. The independent panel of experts continuously evaluated the current situation in Austria and informed the Federal Government on the basis of current scientific findings about epidemiological, medical, health system and social developments. The GECKO experts usually advised every 2 weeks on current federal government issues. At the government's request, GECKO also responded to acute issues at short notice. The assessments and opinions of the GECKO expert meetings were summarised in an executive report and published publicly on the website of the Federal Chancellery. GECKO was discontinued in March 2023.
Crisis communications also play a key role in helping citizens and other stakeholders make sense of the situation. This “meaning making” role was one of the key instances during the COVID-19 pandemic where government leaders and those providing scientific advice had to work closely together to deliver key messages to their nations. Many Adherents turned to scientific experts, such as Chief Medical Officers (CMOs) or heads of national public health institutes, to hold regular, sometimes daily, press conferences and serve as the face of official communications during the COVID-19 response. (OECD, 2023[33]).
The OECD 2020 Understanding Public Communication Surveys, which was administered to Centres of Government and Ministries of Health across 46 OECD Member and non-Member countries, as well as the European Commission, highlighted the importance both groups of stakeholders place on crisis communication: 58% of Centres of Government and 54% of Ministries of Health identified crisis communications as 1 of the 3 biggest challenges they face (OECD, 2021[34]).
The final pillar of this aspect of the Recommendation concerns how effectively Adherents exercise their crisis management arrangements and develop the capabilities of those playing key roles in such arrangements.
The Recommendation calls on Adherents to conduct exercises that reinforce their crisis management capacities and cement co-operation. Decision makers have undertaken training and participated in crisis simulation exercises. In Sweden, for example the entire government, all state secretaries and the government offices take part in exercises to prepare for different types of incidents and scenarios that the government may face. Exercises are held at all levels. They may involve everything from slowly evolving crisis, such as epidemic diseases, to sudden incidents such as a terrorist attack or a disaster due to a natural hazard. The exercises conducted by the government and government offices focus on the management of incidents and situations – nationally and internationally – that create challenges or tensions for Sweden, Swedes or Swedish interests, and that require management by the government and government offices.
A main finding of the 2017 Report concerned the need for Adherents to engage decision makers more frequently in crisis management training and exercising. Strong progress seems to have occurred on this point as 22 out of 27 Respondents reported crisis management training was made available to decision makers before the COVID-19 pandemic, and it is now available across all Respondents.
In the United Kingdom, national exercises of strategic crisis management arrangements have been run as Command Post Exercises (CPX). In this type of exercise, participants are based, as much as practicable, where they would usually work during a real response. They communicate with each other in the way they would during a crisis and attend meetings in real-time. CPX include senior officials and ministerial meetings that follow the same structure and setting as they would during a crisis (including meetings of the Cabinet Office Briefing Rooms chaired by senior Ministers). In Belgium. the National Crisis Center delivers a training programme for local senior officials (including mayors) and familiarises local leaders with the national strategic crisis management system and their role within it.
When asked whether their country had conducted crisis management exercises based on its risk assessment or preparedness plan for the type of (non-COVID-19) crisis it experienced in the past 5 years, 18 out of 27 Respondents answered that they did. Various crisis management functions were exercised, but most frequently the response co-ordination between national government authorities and sub-national levels of government. Among the crisis management functions less often exercised were mechanisms for seeking scientific advice, international early warning systems and international hazard or threat monitoring systems.
Furthermore, more than two-thirds (68%) of Respondents had expressly exercised their pandemic preparedness plans prior to the COVID-19 pandemic and nearly all Respondents noted that senior civil servants and technical / scientific experts had participated in these exercises. The majority of Respondents also included local officials and the military in exercises. Just under half also invited private sector stakeholders and civil society organisations to take part in exercises. The participation of political decision makers, however, was less present in these exercises; only two-fifths of Respondents that conducted exercises included ministers, and less than one-third of heads of government. Trade unions were the least represented group in pandemic exercises. The hardships that frontline workers and essential services encountered during the COVID-19 pandemic might have been identified in advance and better planned for had their representatives participated in exercises that simulated periods of peak infections and general confinement orders. Workers in the health and transportation sectors, utilities, law enforcement and supermarkets are among those who society depended upon to continue their normal activities despite risk of exposure.
Source: 2022 OECD Questionnaire on the Governance of Critical Risks
When asked what crisis management functions they had exercised prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, Respondents pointed primarily to response co-ordination arrangements (across national government and between the national and sub-national levels of government) and decision making regarding national response measures. However, less than half the Respondents reported they had exercised plans on communicating response measures to the public, and even fewer still had exercised mechanisms for gathering scientific advice during crises. This finding underlines a trend highlighted repeatedly across the report: government led actions to manage critical risks seem to actively involve central government authorities about national response policies and measures, and sub-national governments to a lesser degree, but are consistently less engaged with non-government stakeholders.
Source: 2022 OECD Questionnaire on the Governance of Critical Risks
The Recommendation also recognises the importance of international co-operation in preparedness as a mechanism for reinforcing in-crisis international solidarity. The Recommendation calls on Adherents to nurture international co-operation opportunities, information sharing and joint training with international stakeholders/actors to develop a range of crisis preparedness and response capacities.
The national crisis centres for the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg have a long-standing collaboration based on a 2006 Memorandum of co-operation in the field of crisis management with possible cross-border consequences. In this context, the crisis centres in the Benelux countries have also been in constant contact with each other during this COVID-19 pandemic and have been exchanging information through a system set-up to provide information on crisis situations with cross border consequences, which is in operation twenty-four hours a day and seven days a week.
The Network of Directors-General of European Crisis Centres is another example of co-operation between crisis centres in Europe established on 14 September 2021. The protocol establishing the network highlights the importance those participating place on strengthening international co-operation for crisis preparedness and effective crisis management. The network seeks to encourage the exchange of notable practices and experiences in order to provide the best possible response to emergency situations. This collaboration promotes smooth communication between European counterparts while contributing to the search for common solutions to national and international challenges.
All Respondents actively engage in the international exchange of knowledge on crisis management. Among the specific examples aimed at helping non-Adherents to improve their own crisis management arrangements is the work of the Japanese International Co-operation Agency.
The Japan International Co-operation Agency (JICA) furthers international co-operation through capacity building programmes in disaster risk reduction, crisis preparedness and response. It invites foreign officials, mainly from developing countries, to complete courses of study at its Disaster Reduction Learning Center training programs in seismology and earthquakes engineering, water-related disaster risk management and in fields relating to disaster risk reduction, hydrometeorological and managing risks of natural hazards to infrastructure. It also provides technical assistance, advances information sharing about disasters and supports projects in different countries to develop satellite observation, early warning systems, flood forecasting software and a build back better reconstruction methodology.
The Recommendation calls on Adherents to establish the competence and capacities to scale-up emergency response capabilities needed to contend with crises that result from critical risks. As described in the 2017 Report, scaling-up crisis response arrangements requires collaboration and co-ordination among local and national governments, civil society organisations, and international partners.
The COVID-19 pandemic provides a reference event to collect information and compare Respondent’s core crisis management mechanisms (see Figure 5.7), concerning support for timely and evidence-based decision making, as well as co-ordination of cross-government co-operation, support for those working in response and communications with the public. Notable country practices below illustrate how Adherents scaled-up their capacities through mutual aid nationally, tapping into international response support systems, and the use of volunteers and civil society organisations to expand the capacities of public bodies. However, monitoring the effectiveness of response measures was a significant challenge for Respondents’ existing crisis management arrangements, in particular due to the length of the crisis response to COVID-19 and the breadth of measures being implemented.
An example of local level crisis response arrangements being supported by mutual aid from across the country, is the Mutual Aid Agreement between the Fire and Rescue Services in the United Kingdom. The agreement enables local authorities to share resources during large-scale incidents, such as floods, wildfires, and major accidents (Home Office and National Fire Chiefs Council, 2021[38]). These arrangements are further supported by common operating procedures and shared principles on interagency co-ordination established through the Joint Emergency Services Interoperability Programme (JESIP, 2021[39]).
National or federal level support can also play a critical role in crisis response. During the COVID-19 pandemic, many Adherents mobilised civil servants from various government departments to support the response efforts of their ministries of health. For example, in Canada, the federal government deployed hundreds of public servants to support the country's health care system during the pandemic. The civil servants were tasked with a variety of roles, including contact tracing, data analysis, and logistics management (OECD, 2020[40]).
Source: 2022 OECD Questionnaire on the Governance of Critical Risks
International co-operation is a key resource to scale-up crisis response capacity, and Adherents are often using international crisis management arrangements to mobilise such resources when national capacities are at risks becoming overwhelmed or insufficient. The European Union facilitates such arrangements for instance through its Civil Protection Mechanism (UCPM). The UCPM includes a range of operational capabilities, such as the Emergency Response Co-ordination Centre (ERCC), which can be activated to co-ordinate cross-border assistance during emergencies. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the ERCC facilitated exchange of medical supplies and equipment among European Union Member states, while also supporting the deployment of help across the world in support of national authorities facing concurrent incidents that coincided with the pandemic (European Union, 2022[41]). The UCPM also provides for an innovative form of international co-operation whereby firefighters are pre-deployed ahead of the wildfire season to scale-up crisis response capacity. During 2022, firefighters from other European Union Member States were pre-deployed to Greece ahead of the wildfire season to support the country's efforts to prevent and control wildfires during the summer season. This proactive approach helped to increase the capacity of Greek firefighting services and reduce the risk of damage and loss of life from wildfires (International Association of Fire and Rescue Services (CTIF), 2022[42]).
At the global level, the International Search and Rescue Advisory Group (INSARAG) is a global network of disaster response teams that can be deployed to support national authorities following earthquakes and other disasters. INSARAG deployments have been used in numerous countries, including Mexico, Nepal, Indonesia and, most recently, in response to the 2023 earthquakes in Türkiye and Syria. Most Adherents have rescue teams trained to contribute to INSARAG deployments (INSARAG, 2023[43]).
Respondents reported the use of civil society as a source of scaling up their risk management capacities across the full cycle of disaster risk and crisis management. From risk prevention to crisis response, Adherents are increasingly providing a legal basis to leverage the capabilities and skills that volunteers can add to national crisis response capacities as seen in the German experience described in Box 3.39. The government of Canada has invested in expanding a non-governmental ‘Humanitarian Workforce’ program to strengthen national readiness and build the capacity of whole-of-society actors by funding non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to build and maintain a humanitarian workforce to provide all-hazards surge capacity in response to large-scale emergencies. This funding has allowed volunteer organisations to mobilise in response to emerging events more quickly and deploy critical on-the-ground support to provincial, territorial and local governments.
Respondents relied on civil society organisations for understanding the needs of local communities. Across Respondents, examples of civil society organisations collaborating with governments to provide services, thus reaching and supporting the most vulnerable groups in society became particularly evident during the COVID-19 response. Many Adherents also established innovative support programmes and initiatives for these organisations to assist their work during the pandemic (OECD, 2022[44]).
The COVID-19 pandemic saw an increase in the number of spontaneous volunteers (person not previously known to the organisations delivering the services concerned who wanted to volunteer). Whilst this extra resource was welcomed by third sector organisations and public authorities, it presented a logistical challenge: how to ensure volunteers were deployed to help with the most urgent tasks that matched their skills, without jeopardising their safety or that of others. Adherents turned to digital tools to address this challenge, for example France and the United Kingdom set up online platforms handle the surge in people wanting to volunteer. In both countries, these platforms allowed people to volunteer for particular tasks, such as distributing food and emergency aid to those in need, connecting with isolated people or assisting with mass vaccination programmes (OECD, 2020[45]) (NHS Volunteer Responders, 2023[46]).
Local communities across Adherents have organised themselves to send support to persons in need within Ukraine, as well as persons arriving in their country who were fleeing the war. Red Cross and Red Crescent societies have played a key role supporting local communities with these tasks. The Czech Red Cross have been working with local municipalities to support persons arriving from Ukraine through assistance with basic needs such as food, clothing, shelter, mental health and psychosocial support. Volunteers have been helping new arrivals from Ukraine understand the temporary protection measures implemented by European Union, as well as finding accommodation and employment. Volunteers have also provided support in regional assistance centres across the country, in co-operation with local municipalities (Red Cross EU Office, 2022[47]).
The German Federal Office for Civil Protection and Disaster Assistance (BBK) introduced a nationwide volunteer programme to bolster the country’s civil protection capacities. The programme reinforces organised disaster assistance and relief work by integrating volunteers throughout the civil protection system. The novelty of the programme is the range of specialised functions that volunteers can be deployed to during emergency response and crisis, including such expertise as water rescues and operation of specialised machinery and emergency energy generators. Volunteers are also involved in more general emergency response support functions such as logistics co-ordination, communications, and catering at emergency sites.
In addition, the German Federal Agency for Technical relief (THW) is a unique governmental non-profit organisation, whose workforce consist of 98% volunteers, providing technical relief and support both in the national territory and abroad for hazard prevention, critical infrastructure, communication and logistics, protection of the environment, and provision of resources for the population. Between the THW, fire services, local disaster organisations and relief organisations, Germany now counts more than 1.8 million volunteers participating in civil protection and relief work in emergencies.
The Federal Civil Protection and Disaster Relief Act (ZSKG) provides the legal framework for incorporating volunteers in federal civil protection and education in self-protection of the population. It ensures volunteer work in civil protection is a declared objective of the Federal Ministry of Interior (BMI). The German state promotes volunteerism through different incentives, such as such as the ‘Helping Hand Award’, which bestows national honours to volunteer groups and institutions. In 2021, 14 projects (innovative projects, youth projects, and projects supporting the volunteering sector) were awarded the ‘Helping Hand’ prize, highlighting the work and impact of volunteering, developing digital and virtual reality trainings for volunteers, improving the security of volunteers, making volunteering more visible and attractive (especially to the youth). Germany has thus integrated an active citizen-state relationship where engagement and self-responsibility (or self-reliance) of the population is a vital asset of the security of the country.
The Recommendation calls on Adherents to build institutional capacity to design and oversee recovery and reconstruction plans by seizing economic opportunities, reducing vulnerability to future events over the long term.
In general, Adherents begin recovery planning in advance of disasters, and initiate mechanisms while emergency response activities are still in progress. Their disaster recovery processes focus on restoring, redeveloping, and revitalising communities impacted by a disaster. A good country case example is found in the United States where short and long-term recovery actions are organised under the National Disaster Recovery Framework. The framework enables recovery support to disaster-impacted areas, establishing a flexible structure for disaster recovery managers to operate in a unified and collaborative manner. The framework comprises six Recovery Support Functions to provide technical assistance and support disaster recovery in accordance with priorities of impacted communities, including: community planning and capacity building, housing, economic development, infrastructure systems, health, and natural and cultural resources (DHS, 2016[50]).
Respondents generally have now embraced the concept of ‘build back better’ within their reconstruction policies and frameworks, whereas such plans used to aim to rebuild communities to the same state they were before a disaster. The design of reconstruction policies that seize economic opportunity and integrate long term planning requires a factual understanding of needs. Respondents report that post-disaster needs assessments are increasingly risk-informed and more integrated to recovery plans. Methodologies and guidance for creating post-disaster needs assessments continue to be developed, including the COVID19 recovery needs assessment (European Commission, 2020[51]), and the global rapid post-disaster damage estimation (Gunasekera et al., 2018[52]).
In addition to these international examples, Adherents have developed their own methodologies. For instance, the United States has put in place detailed guidance in the Damage Assessment Operations Manual of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA, 2016[53]). Post-disaster needs assessments are valued tools for supporting physical reconstruction, resilient recovery linked to longer-term development and the building of institutional expertise. Challenges remain in estimating infrastructure damages and service disruptions, with data gaps frequently resulting in non-estimation of losses.
The European Union led support for COVID-19 recovery is exemplified in the European Recovery Plan, also known as the Next Generation European Union (NGEU). The plan aims to support the economic recovery of EU Member States and the broader European economy, while also promoting a digital transition. This plan includes a series of measures, such as the creation of a €750 billion recovery fund, the issuance of joint debt in the form of NGEU bonds, and the launch of various investment initiatives. The funds are distributed to EU Member States in the form of grants and loans, with priority given to those most affected by the pandemic and those that are implementing reforms to support the digital transition. The European Union has also developed the Recovery and Resilience Scoreboard as a tool to monitor the implementation of Recovery and Resilience plans across Member states and assess their impact. The Scoreboard evaluates the implementation of European Union Member States' recovery and resilience plans using a set of indicators, such as the level of investment in the digital transition, the progress in structural reforms, and the extent to which the plans are in line with European Union priorities. The Scoreboard also provides a way to compare the progress of different European Union member states, allowing for a better understanding of the overall implementation of the Recovery and Resilience Plans across the European Union.
National recovery plans for the COVID-19 crisis leaned heavily towards economic recovery, but various support measures meant to address various social impacts are found across Adherents. A notable example is found in Ireland, where the government implemented a ‘Covid Learning and Supports Scheme’ to mitigate the negative impacts of students’ learning and wellbeing due to Covid-19 closures and restrictions. Under the scheme, every school receives an allocation of additional teaching hours, enabling them to identify students most at risk of learning loss arising from disrupted school experiences and putting in place specific targeted teaching supports to meet students’ needs (Department of Education, 2021[54]). At the level of cities and regions, the priorities of COVID-19 recovery plans focus on addressing social disparities, promoting sustainability, enhancing mobility, embracing digital transformation, and fostering citizen participation in the recovery process (OECD, 2022[55]).
Source: (OECD, 2021[19])
Note: Out of 41 participants, 23 answered to this question. The figure presents data from countries who agree that their centre of government is responsible for cross government strategic planning to the indicated recovery efforts. The data from this figure contains responses from Non-OECD Members.
The bulk of the recovery efforts from COVID-19 are, however, being conducted outside the framework of national strategic crisis management systems. This risks missing a once in a generation opportunity to use these investments to also reinforce disaster risk and crisis management capabilities.
In general terms, the implementation of the fourth principle of the Recommendation is advancing well across Adherents, yet they continue to face significant challenges when dealing with crises, even when these are brought on by risks that were known and assessed in advance.
All Respondents have taken some organisational measures to develop flexible and adaptive crisis management systems for dealing with both known risks and crises arising from unknown or unexpected risks. Although most Respondents have established crisis response capacities called for in the Recommendation (including mechanisms for utilising multi-disciplinary expertise and scientific advice to support in-crisis decision making), they could do more to train officials across all levels of government, decision makers and key stakeholders outside of government in these arrangements.
Most Respondents exercise crisis management co-ordination arrangements, however, the mechanisms for seeking scientific advice, linking with international early warning systems and with hazard or threat monitoring systems, remain the least exercised.
The COVID-19 pandemic illustrated the need for agile partnerships across the whole of society, and throughout all levels of government, to manage crises. Adherents face the challenge to enhance their capacities to make sense of complexity, and effectively communicate with citizens about what crises mean for society.
Situational awareness also remains a key factor in rapid reaction to crises. Adherents still need to strengthen capabilities to gather, analyse, and visualise vast amounts of data to better understand the scale of a crises and model its future developments. These are now recognised by Respondents as additional core features of modern adaptive crisis management systems, even if these were not explicitly recognised in the Recommendation.
Adherents are integrating additional resilience measures into crisis planning and response due to the current geopolitical context, including closer co-operation between civil and military authorities.
Adherents have been focusing the bulk of their recovery efforts from COVID-19 outside the framework of national strategic crisis management systems. The weak connection between these recovery arrangements and the national strategic crisis management systems in the majority of Adherents make it harder for effectively linking crisis response decisions with recovery processes.
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