The application of Capability Based Planning for emergency and disaster management needs
Abstract as pdf
Corresponding Author:
Gintaras LABUTIS
Military Academy of Lithuania Lithuania
gintaras.labutis@lka.lt
Author(s):
Capability Based Planning (CBP) has been described as the standard for defence and military planning and has been in use for few decades. This approach offered the alternative to threat based planning and provided additional insights related to surrounding uncertainties and the impact of megatrends. While there were lessons learned and practices implemented the present applications of CPB at the national level impose unique challenges. Additionally, during the emergency and disaster events the close cooperation among civil and military actors responsible for collaborative emergency management require the harmonization of the plans and the orchestration of the execution of those plans. That means that CBP as the standard for military and defence has to be further explored by the civilian authorities in order to find the proper alignment and to take into consideration the fact that public safety and security environment is unique and differs from defence. Despite of the attempts to apply CBP approaches and techniques (Netherlands, Canada, USA), the experience and lessons learned provide insufficient data to prove that the CPB model can be mutually beneficial for both defence and civil societies. This research is related to the potential application of CBP for emergency and disaster management. Key problematic research questions focus on: i) analyzing the key CBP aspects and inherent challenges with the potential application for disaster capabilities planning; ii) reflecting the lessons learned from emergency or crisis management where the CBP approach was tested; iii) analyzing stakeholder needs for both defence-based CBP and civil-based CBP. iv) proposing the conceptual model and insights on how this methodology can be applied for civil sector.
The research reviews and reveals the initial expectations for this type of planning and reflects on lessons learned and better practices that can be transferred to the public domain. The research also stresses on some additional challenges involved in applying CBP in the emergency and disaster sphere. Those issues are related to adoption and adaptation of CBP in regards with diversity of stakeholders, the differences in priorities, resources and organizational cultures is analyzed. The present research also gives some future food for thought in further development of CBP concepts, both for military and civil applications.
Literature: Mazarr, M. et all. The U.S. Department of Defence Planning process. Components and Challenges. Rand Corporation, 2019. Taliaferro, A, et. all. Defense Governance and Management: Improving the Defense Management Capabilities of Foreign Defense Institutions. A Guide to Capability-Based Planning (CBP), 2019.
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