Introductory study on Disaster Risk Assessment and Area Business Continuity Planning in industry agglomerated areas in the ASEAN

Abstract

Abstract Two large disasters which occurred in 2011, the Great East Japan Earthquake and the Flood of Chao Phraya River in Thailand, reminded us of the risks of business termination and further impacts on national, regional and global economies through their supply chains. Business Continuity Planning (BCP), of some private enterprises, helped them survive these events to some extent. However, due mainly to disruption of essential resources such as energy, water, transportation and communications in the area of disasters, revealed finally that individual BCP was insufficient to continue their business or quickly recover. In order to minimize economic impacts or losses in the case of large scale disasters that disrupt fundamental infrastructure in certain areas, it is important to do risk assessment at a proper scale and scenario based contingency planning of area damage mitigation. Furthermore, integrated resource management and strategic recovery at a scale of a whole industrial area are crucial since they could support each enterprise’s BCP actions in coordination with the public sector’s actions. The Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) undertook a study on disaster risk assessment and formulation of “Area BCP”, as a new concept of disaster risk management in industrial agglomerated areas based on the lessons f recent disasters. The term of Area BCP is adopted from the “Area Command” under the National Incident Management System (NIMS) of FEMA. NIMS is an organizational structure used to oversee the management of multiple incidents or a very large incident that has multiple Incident Command Systems or management teams to establish critical resource use priorities between various incidents and to make relevant coordinated actions of disaster management. The Area BCP will then describe a framework and direction of actions of stakeholders including individual enterprises, industrial area managers, local authorities and administrator of the infrastructures in order for business continuation of the industrial cluster as a whole. This study introduces the concept of Area BCP and the plan of its formulation in three pilot areas, in Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam, in the ASEAN. These pilot areas are selected because the areas have been affected constantly by disasters, such as earthquakes, floods, tsunamis, typhoons/cyclones and others, and at the same time those areas have been highly agglomerated by many industries in recent years. This paper tries to highlight the current understanding of the study group and does not represent JICA’s official views.