FEMA’s Strategic Foresight Initiative

The publication of Crisis Response and Disaster Resilience 2030: Forging Strategic Action in an Age of Uncertainty in January 2012 marks the second significant doctrinal shift in FEMA revealed in the past six months. Along with A Whole Community Approach to Emergency Management published in December 2011, this new report, the result of a well structured, broad scale look at the future of emergency management, indicates an unprecedented understanding by the current FEMA administration of the significant power that FEMA can exert toward reestablishing a truly resilient America.

The Strategic Foresight Initiative (SFI) takes a national view of a number of emerging trends or “drivers” and their effects on a range of possible futures and suggests 15 essential capabilities that must emerge in the emergency management community to meet the needs of the nation in 2030.

The FEMA Strategic Foresight Initiative is clearly intended to be a long-range evolutionary process designed to anticipate changing conditions to national trends and employ adaptive thinking to identify emerging challenges, requirements and solutions. To accomplish this in a way that is practical and useful to the nation, FEMA must move beyond this first stage of the SFI in three ways:

First, it must continue the current process. The national, collaborative process involving emergency management professionals in a series of workshops, the publication of significant research papers and reports and a continuing effort at dynamic virtual discussion among stakeholders must be institutionalized so that it survives the vicissitudes of Washington politics and becomes an enduring FEMA legacy.

Second, it must expand the input base. While the primary purpose of the SFI is to prepare the emergency management enterprise for an uncertain future, the essential capabilities identified by the process often will be created and implemented outside of the EM community. In the highly interdependent economic, social, and structural environment that characterizes America’s communities, the emergency management function cannot be separated from other community services and functions. Capabilities designed for emergency management must accommodate the broader needs of the community and must operate seamlessly across the full spectrum of national preparedness. This requires an understanding of complex operating environments that cannot be captured through the lens of emergency management alone. Future SFI efforts must address the roles and responsibilities of all sectors of a community.

Finally, it must create whole community observation networks. The SFI took a very bold and innovative approach and examined a range of possible futures. None of the futures considered is likely to be the actual future the nation will face. In all likelihood, the actual future will contain some synthesis of several of these candidate scenarios. The challenge for the SFI will be to continuously monitor emerging trends and their effect on required essential capabilities. This can only be done using a whole community perspective. More importantly, it will be most useful if it is done continuously by a network of linked communities (geographic and communities of interest) with a common purpose and established metrics.

The FEMA Strategic Foresight Initiative along with the Whole Community Approach to Emergency Management represents a significant doctrinal shift in emergency management thinking. This very positive evolution at the national level can be amplified by leveraging the energy of communities and regions and enlisting the participation of communities of interest beyond emergency management professionals.