Redesign (EM)

Emergency and disaster management is its own unique field, with extensive literature, practice, training, and research.  As with all fields, there is debate about what robust public capacities look like, their state of preparedness, operational budgets, and operating procedures. Of particular interest to food system themes is the long-term shift towards prevention.

For EM analysts, prevention focuses on hazard identification and vulnerability assessment, and then they must work with specialists and communities in the affected sectors to minimize the likelihood of events. At the redesign stage, the presumption is that EM has shifted towards a full prevention approach that parallels comparable food system shifts, as discussed in most other places on this site. There is a harmonious interplay between the prevention dynamics of both systems. Until EM has fully developed this approach, it will be difficult to identify with more precision what that looks like.