Quick Planning Guide on Preparedness, Response and Recovery

This guide is designed to highlight how a business resilience organization in the Pacific, the Vanuatu Business Resilience Council, has integrated itself into government and non-government humanitarian processes to play a meaningful role in disaster and climate preparedness, response and recovery as well as influence resilience building overall.

Our story has been one of localization. Rather than always await external experts, the Vanuatu Business Resilience Council has shown that it can play a leading role in disaster and climate management.

It is undisputable that in the Pacific, the private sector increasingly plays an important role to augment the disaster preparedness, response and recovery typically carried out by the government, international community, and civil society organizations. Many in the Pacific’s business sector have shifted their mindsets from simply doing corporate philanthropy to a more programmatic and meaningful attempt to improve the overall disaster risk management capacity in the region.

The Vanuatu Business Resilience Committee is formally acknowledged by the Vanuatu Chamber of Commerce and Industry as the private sector coordination mechanism
for disaster risk management. Composed of business leaders in Vanuatu, both climate and disaster advocates and highly committed professionals, VBRC works alongside field experts and reputable humanitarian institutions to organize and coordinate private sector assistance to disaster-affected communities, and served as a hub for disaster preparedness, training, and coordination for disaster relief and recovery operations.

This document is designed for private sector networks interested or currently implementing disaster preparedness initiatives and emergency response operations. This Guidance provides a catalogue of recommended actions that have been successfully implemented in Vanuatu, and organized into the the three phases of the disaster timeline: pre-disaster (Preparedness), during disaster (Response), and post-disaster (Recovery).