Crisis Management Plan

CRISIS MANAGEMENT PLAN (CMP)

PHASES OF CRISIS MANAGEMENT

In the traditional disaster management approach, the focus was on emergency relief and immediate rehabilitation. Society deemed these measures sufficient as anything more was considered “unaffordable”. Besides, as stated in the Yokohama Declaration, the element of “drama” and flurry of activities with these interventions tended to show to the Society at large that the State “cared”. A “Welfare State” entails wider responsibilities meaning thereby that in addition to the traditional responsibilities of relief and immediate rehabilitation, Governments in conjunction with the local bodies, the civil society, voluntary organizations and corporate bodies, address the factors leading to the crisis, in a manner significantly reduces their ill effects.

It is also necessary to recognize that often a crisis does not emerge suddenly, it has a life cycle, which may take days, months or even decades to develop depending on its causative factors. A crisis, therefore, needs to be examined in terms of its management cycle that would enable us to anticipate the crisis, prevent and mitigate it to the extent possible and deal with the crisis situation as it emerges. This „life cycle‟ of crisis management may be divided broadly in three phases such as pre-crisis, during crisis and post crises.