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Running Head: HOW PUBLIC AND PRIVATE SECTOR PARTNERSHIPS CREATE NATIONAL RESILIENCE

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HOW PUBLIC AND PRIVATE SECTOR PARTNERSHIPS CREATE NATIONAL RESILIENCE

How Public and Private Sector Partnerships Create National Resilience

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How Public and Private Sector Partnerships Create National Resilience

Q3: How do partnerships between the public and private sector contribute to national resilience? Critically evaluate using appropriate concepts, models and frameworks from the unit and real-world examples to support your argument.

Public-private partnerships are essential in disaster management and developing community and building national resilience. A public-private partnership has also served well in developing the community's awareness of risks and providing various essential services. The purpose of this paper is to adequately evaluate how the partnership between private and public organizations contributes to national resilience. Various studies across the globe have shown that public-private partnerships help reduce in building national resilience to disasters and emergencies. The value of public-private partnerships has been demonstrated on various occasions during the Queensland floods in 2010 to 2011. Public-private sector partnerships have been developed in Australia, especially in relation to national resilience in the age where incidences that threaten the security of the country fare on the rise (Busch & Givens, 2013). 

In the article, "Achieving Resilience in Disaster Management" by Busch and colleagues argue that national resilience is achieved if systems, assets, and networks and infrastructure vital to the economy and security of the nation are adequately protected. National resilience also contributes to the well-being of the economy, health, safety, and social infrastructure (Busch & Givens, 2013). Some of the critical infrastructures whose effectiveness depend on national resilience include water, emergency services, agriculture and food, electrical grid and system, public health, and transport system, among many systems and networks. National Resilience is often threatened by events such as terrorism, floods, vandalism, natural disasters, enemy attacks, and cyber-security threats, among many other events. If such events happen, the functionality of critical infrastructure becomes affected. This may bring to a halt of certain essential processes of a country, which consequently affects the security of the country and harms the economy and provision of social amenities. It is imperative, therefore, that the Government put in place that provides a critical infrastructure with protection. This is effectively gained through public-private partnerships (APEC, 2010). 

The magnitude of natural disasters has been growing steadily. The 2011 Japanese earthquake, the 2011 Brisbane floods, the 2019 Australian fires, the 2010 Haiti earthquake, 2019 Hurricane Dorian, 2005 Hurricane Katrina, and the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami are examples of significant events that put at risk critical infrastructure. The severity of such catastrophes and the limit of what the public sector can do to control and respond to such disasters has generated the need for greater participation of the private sector to building national resilience. Building partnerships between the public or the Government and non-government sector or private sector is accepted widely as vital in achieving disaster-resilient and sustainable communities (APEC, 2010). The development of these partnerships emerged in the 1980s as a way of reforming the administration and reducing the effects of bureaucracy. Such partnerships were hailed as being able to provide a solution to efficiency in public administration by exploiting synergies in the joint innovative and creative use of resources.

In Australia, partnership development has been promoted by the National Strategy for Disaster Resilience. At the national level, Trusted Information Sharing Network (TISN) for Critical Infrastructure Resilience is a major public-private partnership that helps provide a framework for the exchange of information. That is related to continuity and security of the critical infrastructure both operated commercially and privately owned (Buttarazzi, 2013). Community resilience is often conceptualized as entailing a society that can function well when under stress and is self-reliant and has functional social capacity. National resilience is a critical factor in building a public-private partnership that provides a framework for information exchange regarding the security and continuity of national resilience (Buttarazzi, 2013). The disaster management system in Australia affords significant responsibility for managing disasters at the local and state levels. Public-private partnerships help in supporting business resilience and continuity, supporting essential services or infrastructure, and developing community risk awareness programs. More so, a public-private partnership has played a role in establishing integrative communication forums, networks, and platforms and effecting risk mapping and assessment. 

The role of public-private partnerships in building resilience and in management of emergencies is broadly classified as either strategic aimed at preparedness and prevention activities or responsive that is aimed at the response and recovery operations. Demonstrably, the public-private sector partnership has contributed to disaster recovery and management in several ways that include playing a major role in early response and long-term recovery (Bajracharya & Hastings, 2015). Through the collaboration of the public and private sector, there has been an increased drive in facilitating the use of technology in disaster management and in building national resilience. Ideally, public-private partnerships have helped in the management of the influxes of funds as well as supplementing the federal disbursement processes. In this regard, public-private partnerships have helped the federal and state Government effectively builds national resilience through well-coordinated processes that help overcome the seeming inefficiencies of the federal and state governments (Buttarazzi, 2013).

Public-private partnerships in Australia and across the globe are integral in that they help in increasing efficiency and effectiveness in building national resilience. The partnerships between private sectors and public sector partners and the recipients can provide the latter with the strategic focus of disaster management agencies (Bajracharya & Hastings, 2012). More so, public-private partnerships can reduce the burdens that are placed on federal and state Governments in providing certain services or goods immediately and over time, enabling the public sector to focus on other vital priorities. An even more vital role in public-private partnerships is their ability to develop and implement a flexible model for disaster management. This is usually essential for ongoing resilience development (Bajracharya & Hastings, 2015).

Public-private partnerships also help the operators and owners of critical infrastructure to identify, analyze, and manage any cross-sectional dependencies. Critical infrastructure in Australia is very interdependent so that the disruption of one of the sectors is likely to have ripple effects on other sectors (R. & A.P.C., 2015). This can lead to the disruption of other sectors. For instance, owners and operators of water depend on electricity for telecommunication to monitor operations and pumping. Similarly, the communication industry needs electricity to run its networks (Kwak. et al., 2009). 

Industries and factories also depend on electric power, and an attack, vandalism, and disconnection of these systems and networks will affect various sectors (Bajracharya & Hastings, 2012). A cross-sectional analysis, in this case, would help the owners and the operators of critical infrastructure to understand the risks that may be beyond the purview of the individual sectors and organizations. This would eventually increase the potential for a more effective sharing of risk that would cope with certain incidents. The Critical Infrastructure Program for Modelling Analysis (CIPMA) is a key initiative in the Australian Government's efforts that enhance the national resilience in Australian (Bajracharya & Hastings, 2015).

Public-private partnerships also provide policy advice to relevant agencies and ministries on several issues that are related to national resilience (R. & A.P.C., 2015). The coordination of both public and private sectors in providing national resilience with protection has served well. It is now accepted the doctrine of the Australian Government that policy advice needs to be constructed through a whole approach that reflects on the relationship with other government policies. More so, the Australian Government views the public-private partnership as critical in building the necessary reliability as well as confidence in providing national resilience and the essential protection (R. & A.P.C., 2015). 

The Trusted Information Sharing Network (TISN) that was established in 2003, has been the basis of government and private sector cooperation. TISN consists of members from owners and operators of critical infrastructure, State and Territory Government (Bajracharya & Hastings, 2012). TISN has been able to raise awareness of the various risks that national resilience is prone to. The public partnership has effectively helped in sharing techniques that rea necessary in evaluating and mitigating the risks and hazards. It has also helped the Federal Government, state government, state, and Territory governments in sharing information with communities in an attempt to build community resilience. In this regard, the Federal Government and State Government must continue building a conducive environment for better engagement of public-private partnership in the provision of protection to critical infrastructure for the creation of national resilience (APEC, 2010). 

Conclusion

The value of the public-private partnership is unyielding. The collaboration of the private and public sector in the provision of national resilience is vital to the security of a nation. Without such cooperation, the Federal Government and the state government would be overwhelmed. Public-private partnerships, as discussed, help in policy development, cross-sectional evaluation, sharing the financial burden with the federal and state Government and helping operators and owners of critical infrastructure in managing unforeseen or unexpected risks. Nation Risk management demands the cooperation of all sectors in the economy, which is enhanced when there is an effective and efficient public-private partnership. A resilience approach in managing risks to major infrastructures encourages an organization to develop a more organic capacity to deal with rapid onset shocks. Private sectors such as non-governmental organizations and government organizations or the public sector participate fully in the management of risks and hazards to critical infrastructure; this is easily achieved. 

References Abou-bakr, A. J. & Muse, P., 2013. Managing disasters through public-private partnerships. 1 ed. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press. APEC , 2010 . Public-Private Partnerships and Disaster Resilience, Bangkok : Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation . Bajracharya, B. & Hastings, P., 2012. Public-private partnership in disaster management: A case study of the gold coast. Australian Journal of Emergency Management, 27(3), pp. 27 - 33. Bajracharya, B. & Hastings, P., 2015. Public-private partnerships in emergency and disaster management: Examples from the Queensland floods 2010-11. Australian Journal of Emergency Management, 30(4), pp. 30 - 36. Busch, N. E. & Givens, A. D., 2013. Achieving Resilience in Disaster Management: The Role of Public-Private Partnerships. Journal of Strategic Security, 6(2 ), pp. 1 - 19 . Buttarazzi, J., 2013. Using public-private partnerships to enhance emergency management., Washington, DC: Institute for Public-Private Partnership. Kwak, Y. H., Chih, Y. & Ibbs, C. W., 2009. Towards a Comprehensive Understanding of Public Private Partnerships for Infrastructure Development. California Management Review, 51(2), pp. 51 - 78 . R., O.-K. & A.P.C., C., 2015. Review of studies on the critical success factors for public-private partnership (PPP) projects from 1990 to 2013. International Journal of Project Management, 33(6), pp. 1335 - 1346 .