MY-MOBILISE MAP

NATIONAL MULTI-AGENCY COLLABORATION MAPPING FOR MANAGING DISASTER IN MALAYSIA (MY-MOBILISE MAP)

BACKGROUND OF THE PROJECT

In response to the lessons and criticisms over the recent large-scale disasters and relief activities during the disasters, many government organizations around the world have recently launched initiatives to improve their disaster management (DM) capabilities. While a revision of disaster management capability may entail transformation of organizational structures, business processes, and technical infrastructure across multiple organizations, the field of disaster management suffers from lack of theoretical foundation.

Disaster Management Organisations (DMos) refer to organisations that prevent, mitigate, and recover unexpected events that adversely affect people or resources and threat the continued operation of organizations. Unexpected events include any natural or man-made disaster. DMOs are responsible for preparing for disaster before it occurs, minimizing the impacts when it occurs, and rebuilding society from the aftermath of an occurred disaster. DMOs may include various government agencies (e.g. Police, Fire, Medical Services), non-government organizations (e.g. UN, Red Cross), and some private sector first responder organizations (e.g. utility, transportation, healthcare, construction firms). Involvement of good governance on DM is important to connect the authority, the related agecies and the community at large.

Multi-agency collaboration in the context of DM is defined as cooperative endeavors of multiple DMOs in an effort to coordinate their relief activities or find alternative solutions to manage the disaster situation (Yang, 2009). MOBILISE project claimed that the organisational structures that facilitate collaboration among these multi-agencies are well established in the developing countries, but not appropriately constituted in many of Low & Medium-Income (LMICs) such as Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Malaysia. In actual fact, in Malaysia multi-agency collaboration is an even greater challenge due to the nature of its less developed governance structures in managing disasters. DM study, particularly on multi-agency collaboration, community participation and response to disaster, is relatively new in Malaysia (Sobian, 2016). MOBILISE project further claimed that DM is clearly an essential element in creating a more accessible and transparent service delivery system in any future disasters (McEntire, 2011, Eide et al., 2012). While the necessity for collaboration has been established and organizational structures are in place, the lack of effective collaboration between different agencies is commonly cited in reports in disasters (see, for example, Vettenranta, 2015).

Due to the above mentioned DM knowledge deficiencies, therefore this proposal aims to investigate how multi-agency collaboration structured and emerged in Malaysia based on the structuration theory. Then, the team will recognize interests, strategies, agency relationships and internal power relations of the national multi-agency involved in managing disaster in Malaysia by mapping it manually and digitize it using relevant digital platform. This platform would become a user friendly “One-stop-Digital Humanitarian Centre” for those who are interested to find information on DMOs and its agencies/collaborators/community groups in Malaysia.

On top of that, considering this proposal is a small scale of MOBILISE project or Mini-MOBILISE for Malaysian team, therefore this proposal is trying to establish, validate and institutionalize the proposed conceptual framework which later will be known as “National Multi-Agency Collaboration Mapping for Managing Disaster in Malaysia (MY-MOBILISE MAP)”.

OBJECTIVES OF THE PROJECT

  1. To identify existing national multi-agencies collaboratively involved in managing disaster in Malaysia;
  2. To recognize interests, strategies, agency relationships and internal power relations of the national multi-agency involved in managing disaster in Malaysia;
  3. To develop conceptual framework for national multi-agency collaboration mapping for managing disaster in Malaysia;
  4. To professional validate the established conceptual framework for national multi-agency collaboration mapping in managing disaster in Malaysia; and
  5. To institutionally map national multi-agency collaboration for managing disaster in Malaysia digitally.

THEORETICAL COMPONENTS

Literature review will be based on the below theoretical components (Theoretical Review – TR) and this will be conducted by the Research Assistant 2 (Will be appointed July until September 2018).

METHODOLOGY & METHODS

TR – Theoretical Review (TR) will be carried out by the Research Assistant 2 (RA2).

Purely qualitative approach based on the following identified research methods:
M1 – Web-based Content Analysis (WBC) – related agencies’ websites.
M2 – Professional Workshop (PW) – Selected multi-agency officials/representatives (20 officials).

RESEARCH PROTOCOL

  1. To identify existing national multi-agencies collaboratively involved in managing disaster in Malaysia; (TR + WBC + PW)
  2. To recognize interests, strategies, agency relationships and internal power relations of the national multi-agency involved in managing disaster in Malaysia; (TR + WBC + PW)
  3. To develop conceptual framework for national multi-agency collaboration mapping for managing disaster in Malaysia; (TR + WBC + PW)
  4. To professional validate the established conceptual framework for national multi-agency collaboration mapping in managing disaster in Malaysia; (PW) and
  5. To institutionally map national multi-agency collaboration for managing disaster in Malaysia manually and digitally. (TR + WBC + PW)

SAMPLING

Type: Theoretical sampling (qualitative sampling).

DELIVERABLES

  1. Case study report on the development of National Multi-Agency Collaboration Mapping for Managing Disaster in Malaysia as requested by the Prime Minister Department of Malaysia;
  2. Manual (report) & digital platform of National Multi-Agency Collaboration Mapping for Managing Disaster in Malaysia. Both will be published in the website (MOBILISE-Malaysia: Shared Data Portal); and
  3. Workshop report and periodical updates of MOBILISE-Malaysia containing information about the workshop and future workshops in general, list of participants, photos, information of the institutions and agencies, contacts etc.