A level of readiness or emergency response describing an EOC’s activities in response to predetermined criteria related to the severity of an incident

The response management function that attends to accounting, budgeting, time- and record-keeping, payments and disbursements and procurement contracting. Commonly also identified as finance and administration

After an activation, operation or exercise has been completed, a process involving astructured facilitated discussion to review what should have happened, what actuallyhappened, and why

An approach to the management of the entire spectrum of emergency risks and events based on the recognition that there are common elements in the management of these risks, including in the responses to virtually all emergencies, and that by standardizing a management system to address the common elements, greater capacity is generated along with specific measures to address the unique characteristics of each event.

An agency or organization providing personnel, services, or other resources to the agency with lead responsibility for incident management

A document that describes how an organization will maintain and restore critical operational functions and services to a predetermined acceptable level in the event of an occurrence that disrupts its operational capabilities. The focus is not on the nature of the occurrence but on recovering from the damage to the organization. Often called a continuity of operations plan, particularly for government agencies.

A combination of all the strengths, attributes, and resources available within an organization, jurisdiction, society, or community that can contribute to managing and reducing the level of risk and strengthening resilience. Capacity can include infrastructure and physical means, institutions, social coping abilities, or economic assets as well as human knowledge, skills, and collective attributes such as social relationships, leadership, and management capability.

A debriefing session held after a period of time has passed following an exercise or incident, in order to discuss, with the benefit of hindsight, any observations and issues that may have been overlooked during a hot wash.

The act of managing, directing, ordering or controlling by virtue of explicit statutory, regulatory or delegated authority. The common short name for “incident command”, involving making decisions, implementing plans to manage an incident, and controlling their effects.

A single, continuously updated overview of an incident compiled throughout its life cycle from data shared between integrated systems for communication, information management, and intelligence and information sharing. A common operating picture is available to all EOC personnel, creating uniform situational awareness.

The processes, protocols, and content of event management information exchanged vertically and horizontally within an incident or event management organization.

A disaster complicated by civil violence, government instability, macroeconomic collapse, population migration, elusive political solutions, etc., in which any emergency response has to be conducted in a difficult political and security environment, potentially involving a multisectoral, international response that goes beyond the mandate or capacity of any single agency.

A corporate or government programme that commits resources to a range of measures to implement prevention and mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery (also disaster (risk) management programme). Typically, this programme includes the full range of capacities for managing risks associated with emergencies and disasters.

A training and exercise programme consisting of a progression of increasingly complex exercises designed to increase understanding of practice and to evaluate different emergency management capabilities. A comprehensive programme comprises five general types of exercise, namely: orientations, drills, table-top exercises (TTXs), functional exercises, and full-scale exercises.

A section or statement in an agency emergency plan or EOC plan that identifies policies, roles and responsibilities and describes how the structural or functional elements of the organization will work together to produce a coherent management response.

As applied to emergency (risk) management, context is described by a number of factors related to the setting, circumstances, and environment of risks and events. These include the cultural, social, political, legal, regulatory, financial, technological, economic, natural and competitive environment – whether local, national, regional or international – and those factors related to the governance, organizational structure, roles, accountabilities, policies, objectives and strategies that are in place to achieve those objectives. They also include the capabilities of and relationships between the internal and external actors and stakeholders.

A plan to deal with particular aspects of a specific threat that is different from other threats. For example, while general management is similar for most emergencies and is therefore efficiently addressed by a generic (all-hazards) approach, the specific resources and actions that would be required to address a communicable disease outbreak are different from those used to respond to an earthquake. Each would require a different contingency plan.

The application of authority, combined with the capability to manage resources, in order to achieve defined objectives. Refers to the overall direction of the activities, agencies or individuals concerned and operates horizontally across all agencies/organizations, functions, and individuals.

An agency supplying assistance other than direct operational or support functions or resources to the incident management effort.

Management processes to ensure integration (unity) of effort. Coordination relates primarily to resources. It operates vertically (within an organization) as a function of the authority to command, and horizontally (across organizations) as a function of the authority to control.

• A critical information requirement (CIR) is information that is vital t facilitating situational awareness and decision-making.
• A CIR is a high priority Essential Element of information (EEI) What distinguishes a CIR from an EEI is the level of urgency.
• A CIR triggers immediate, mandatory action, such as reporting (Spot Report(SPOTREP) or a Situation Report (SITREP)