What can humanitarians learn from Incident Command Systems?

ALNAP’s recent research on humanitarian leadership (http://www.alnap.org/leadership) suggested that humanitarian organisations should focus on improving their organisational structures and procedures to allow individual leaders, and leadership teams, to carry out their functions effectively. The report particularly noted the importance of ensuring that organisations had clear organisational structures; delegated responsibilities; effective information management systems; standardised operating procedures and well understood decision-making processes.

In developing these organisational capacities, humanitarian organisations have a lot to learn from emergency response professionals in other sectors, who regularly use Incident Command Systems (ICS) (also known as Incident Management Systems-IMS) to provide management and leadership structures for emergencies. ICS/IMS approaches are regularly used by civil defence and national disaster management authorities from Bangladesh to the USA.

An improved understanding of ICS/IMS could potentially help us improve our own leadership and organisational effectiveness in emergency response, and allow us to work better with national authorities.

This webinar was presented by two of the world’s leading experts on ICS/IMS – Arnold Howitt of Harvard University and Joseph Pfeifer, Head of the FDNY’s Center for Terrorism and Emergency Preparedness.