Bron: Alex Wittenberg, Partner, Oliver Wyman Global Risk Center

Recent global shocks, such as the 2008 financial crisis, have driven policy makers and industry strategists to re-examine how to prepare for and respond to such events in the future, whether they arise in financial, natural, public health or even political systems. This OECD report is part of the organisation’s pioneering work on the policy implications of emerging and systemic risks and supports the development of foresight capacity in its Member countries. The report’s findings draw primarily from analysis contained in five case studies on different types of events: financial crises, cyber risks, pandemics, geomagnetic storms and social unrest – some of which have proven capacity to produce global shocks. All five background papers are available separately on the OECD website: www.oecd. org/futures.

Global leaders are acutely aware that anothersystemic shock could severely challenge economic recovery, social cohesion and even political stability. Visible indicators of vulnerability persist in the forms of economic imbalances, volatile commodity prices and currencies, colossal public debts and severe budget deficits. Less visible than these metrics are the drivers of vulnerability that tightly weave interconnections between commercial supply chains, technological systems and investment vehicles underlying the global economy. Unanticipated events such as natural disasters, failures in key technical systems or malicious attacks could disrupt these complex systems and produce shocks that propagate around the world.

There is a palpable sense of urgency to identify and assess risks arising from vulnerabilities in these crucial systems, and to develop policies that will bolster efforts for prevention, early warning and response to ensure sustained economic prosperity. This urgency explains the demand for OECD to deliver strategic advice on preparing for and responding to potential global shocks mired in uncertainties.

Since the beginning of this project in 2009, the world has witnessed the effects of a global financial meltdown, the first declared pandemic in over 40 years, political upheaval in the MENA region, the BP oil spill, closure of European air space due to a volcanic ash cloud, and most recently the Tohuku earthquakes, tsunami and ensuing nuclear reactor accidents at the Fukushima power plant. Never before have global risks seemed so complex, the stakes so high, and the need for international co-operation to deal with them so apparent.

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The 2010-2011 World Disaster Reduction Campaign “Making Cities Resilient” addresses issues of local governance and urban risk while drawing upon previous ISDR Campaigns on safer schools and hospitals, as well as on the sustainable urbanizations principles developed in the UN-Habitat World Urban Campaign 2009-2013.”

Source: United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction

Source: United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR)

The partnership of RMP and PRIMO is focused on strengthening the dissemination of relevant public risk related information in the Dutch and English language area’s by further investing in newsletter, website and magazine. The second focus point is to contribute to a further development of the PRIMO Academy, which comprises scientific research and education development.

RMP Managing Director Kaz Janowicz, PRIMO Europe President Tom Wustenberghs and PRIMO Founding President Jack P. Kruf are very content with the new partnership and are looking forward to a fruitful partnership.’

John O’Dea speaks to Martin Vella about the importance of developing exchanges of information and expertise to establish risk management as a natural and integral part of good public governance.

EDITOR’S NOTE
John O’Dea is President of PRIMO Malta and a member of the Executive Board of PRIMO Europe, a Pan-European organisation registered and domiciled in Brussels, was set up at a UDITE meeting in Dublin in 2007, to enhance public risk management as an integral part of public governance. He has had a varied career in top managerial and executive posts in the manufacturing, retail and hospitality industries and is currently employed as a consultant with Scotts Supermarkets.

COPORATE BRIEF
PRIMO Europe was created on the 6′th December 2005, by UDITE- the Pan- European Union of Local Authority Chief Executives of Europe with the aim of making risk management an essential part of good management in the public sector. Since its inception, PRIMO Europe has developed rapidly with chapters in Denmark, France, Nederland, Flanders and now also in Malta – a network which offers its members a comprehensive web library, guidance and counseling, as well as an introductory online course in risk management.

TEU: How would you define risk management and what are its benefits?
JO:Risk can be defined as the combination of the probability of an event and its consequences. Quite a mouthful! Basically, in every type of undertaking, there is the potential for events and consequences that constitute opportunities for benefit or threats to success. Risk Management is concerned with both positive and negative aspects of risk and looks at risk from both perspectives. In the field of safety it is generally recognised that consequences are only negative and therefore the management of safety risk is focused on prevention and mitigation of risk.

Risk Management is a central part of any organisation’s strategic management. It is a process whereby organisations methodically address the risks prevalent to their activities with the goal of achieving constant benefit within each activity and across the range of all activities. The focus of risk management is the identification and treatment of these risks. Additionally, it increases the probability of success, and reduces both the probability of failure and the uncertainty of achieving the organisation’s overall objectives.

TEU: What is PRIMO Europe’s philosophy towards financial risks?
JO: PRlMO stands for Public Risk Management Organisation. It was founded to enhance public risk management as an integral part of public governance. PRIMO is only concerned in financial risks, in so far as how the performance of banks (which were bailed out with public funds) affects the public sector. A case in point is how the global credit crunch has adversely affected and limited public spending on the infrastructure in local government all over Europe where budgets have been trimmed to the bone.

” Risk Management is concerned with both positive and negative aspects of risk”

TEU: What is the importance of risk management in the overall strategy of PRIMO Malta?
JO: PRlMO Malta’s mission is to inculcate and embed public risk management and best practice in both local and national government institutions. PRIMO is the offspring of UDITE, (Union des Dirigeants Territoreaux Europeans) the Pan European federation of local government chief executives. UDITE is a professional networking organisation for local government chief executives across Europe. With around 15,000 members and working as the umbrella organisation across 15 EU countries, UDITE links with its members’ local government national associations to promote constructive relations between chief executives and senior managers.

The executive board of UDITE, of which I was a member, had long discussed the need to set up an independent organisation to promote public risk management; PRIMO was set up at a UDITE meeting in Dublin in 2007.

TEU: How will the PRIMO Academy promote risk management and how will it provide a competitive edge?
JO: The PRIMO Academy is still in its formative stage. The PRIMO Board unanimously agreed to set up an academy to foster and promote risk management to its members and to members of UDITE. I contacted Maven Training – a private organisation that provides training in MoR (Management of Risk) for ALARM – the British national forum for risk management in the public sector and similar European organisations. The PRIMO Academy, will offer training courses, seminars and briefings that attract PDUs (Professional Development Units), which provide evidence of continuing professional development and help maintain professional certification. The PRIMO Academy will enable risk, project and change professionals to gain PDUs via its accredited training courses (foundation and practitioner), workshops briefings and special interest forums.

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Your organization won’t innovate productively unless some underlying factors are in good shape. If “10″ is outstanding and “1″ is poor, how do you rate your organization on each of these?

1. A compelling case for innovation. Unless people understand why innovation is necessary, it always loses to core business or the performance engine in the battle for resources. The performance engine is bigger, is the center of power, and can justify resources based on short term financial results. So the case for innovation has to be made, and it better be compelling. Read more >

Source: Marsh, PRIMO

La gestion des risques occupe une place de plus en plus importante dans les préoccupations des dirigeants territoriaux. Dans un contexte de quête d’efficience plus marquée, de diversification des outils de la commande publique et de développement des partenariats, la gestion des risques devient un élément incontournable de la gestion publique. Elle participe à l’optimisation des ressources comme à l’atteinte des objectifs.

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She is the author of the HBR article Strategies for Learning from Failure.

Source: Harvard Business Review. Read more >

But business and leadership is all about relationships. And in any relationship, things go wrong, mistakes are made, ups are followed by downs. The strength of a relationship is not how perfect it is, but how resiliently it deals with the inevitable failures.

Source: Harvard Business Review. Read more >

Abstract
This paper discusses critical infrastructures (CI) and their dependencies, with as central theme the hypothesis that a lack of CI situational awareness and protection in emergency management operations results in unnecessary amplification of the consequences. This paper discusses the hypothesis and findings along some well-known international emergencies analysed from the perspective of the hypothesis.

Societies are increasingly dependent on a set of products and services which comprise the Critical Infrastructures (CI). CI are those assets and parts thereof which are essential for the well-functioning of critical societal functions, including the supply chain, health, safety, security, economy or social wellbeing of people (European Commission, 2008). Failing CI may have serious consequences to citizens and society as a whole. One would expect that emergency management functions have full situational awareness of the state of CI during a major incident and of the responsibilities to protect them. CI (public and private) are important to emergency management and disaster response in three ways: for one’s own operations inside the incident area including one’s own C3I structure as well as for one’s static commandinfrastructure, for  the population in the incident area, and for critical infrastructure services to the area around the incident area.

Empirical evidence from reports about emergencies and disasters in various regions in the world shows that situational awareness and caretaking for CI is a weak spot in emergency management unless the disruption of a CI is the emergency itself. This causes unwanted extensions of the duration and size of emergencies with more casualties, more suffering, and more damage than needed. If, however, emergency management has a proper situational awareness and takes proper care of the protection of CI, it may even help to decrease the consequences and speed up recovery. Apart from awareness-building, this paper presents several recommendations for Emergency Management.

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