In its just released strategic plan, which covers the period of 2022-2026, FEMA presents three overarching goals it will pursue in the coming years both internally and in its coordination with partners. The goals include instilling equity as a foundation of emergency management, leading the whole of community in climate resilience, and promoting and sustaining a ready FEMA and prepared nation.
FEMA notes the inclusion of equity into emergency management is not a new concept, adding it cannot be done in a one-size-fits-all approach and that it will strive to be aware of, and responsive to, the needs of different individuals and communities. The inclusion of equity in the strategic plan mirrors other recent federal activities, including EPA’s recent announcement that it intends to target resources from the recently passed Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to disadvantaged communities.
For climate resilience, FEMA emphasizes this represents a profound crisis for the nation, with natural disasters now more frequent, more intense, and more destructive. To address this challenge, FEMA aims to build better resources and tools to drive its understanding of future risk and enhance the agency’s ability to act, using what has been developed to engage the local, private sector, and nonprofit partners, among others, in developing climate resilience through systems-based, community-wide investments in climate adaptation.
Speaking of more frequent natural disasters, FEMA notes by November 2020 it was managing six times as many Stafford Act events as in prior years, imposing enormous challenges for the agency in terms of staff deployments. FEMA states the only way to address this challenge is to increase the nation’s overall emergency management capabilities at all levels of government, as well as the private sector, the nonprofit sector, and among individuals.
In a letter released on the occasion of the strategic plan’s release, FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell states, “The field of emergency management is at a pivotal moment. We are seeing tremendous change in the landscape of risk and in our professional roles. While our mission of helping people before, during, and after disasters has not changed, our operating environment has.”
