In Aug. 2019, FEMA published the National Mitigation Investment Strategy. The Investment Strategy is a national strategy for advancing mitigation investment to reduce risks posed by natural hazards (e.g., sea level rise, droughts, floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, wildfires and earthquakes) and to increase the nation’s resilience to natural hazards. It was developed by the Mitigation Framework Leadership Group, which is chaired by FEMA.[11] The Mitigation Framework Leadership Group comprises federal, state, local, tribal and territorial public-sector representatives. Its responsibilities include organizing mitigation efforts across the federal government, integrating federal efforts to deliver the mitigation core capabilities described in the National Mitigation Framework, and assessing the effectiveness of these capabilities across the United States.[12] Through the Mitigation Framework Leadership Group and its HMA programs, FEMA continually looks for opportunities to coordinate among federal agencies and programs to better align mitigation efforts to advance the National Mitigation Investment Strategy.
The Investment Strategy responds to a recommendation made in 2015 by the Government Accountability Office after reviewing the federal response to Hurricane Sandy. Among the Government Accountability Office’s key findings were that mitigation investments had not been coordinated within and outside of the government, thereby reducing the effectiveness of investments. Thus, the Investment Strategy calls for non-federal partners and the federal government to work together to better identify, prioritize and implement mitigation investments.
The Investment Strategy’s purpose is to increase the nation’s resilience to natural hazards through more effective, efficient mitigation investment. The Investment Strategy’s objective is to identify and measure the effectiveness of mitigation investments and inform decisions on when and where to make investments. The Investment Strategy’s recommendations focus specifically on how the federal government and non-federal partners can identify, support, influence and align whole community mitigation investments.
The Investment Strategy’s goals are to:
- Show how mitigation investments reduce risk: Goal 1 encourages a common understanding of how mitigation investments reduce risks to people, homes, neighborhoods, cultural and historic resources, ecosystems, and lifelines such as communications, energy, transportation and water. Recommendations to achieve this goal include making mitigation investments relevant, increasing investments by building the capacity of communities to address their risks, and using common measures to aid decision-making for mitigation investment.
- Coordinate mitigation investments to reduce risk: Goal 2 encourages information sharing, strategy coordination and making funding sources easier to access and use. Improved access to risk and risk reduction information will help the federal government and non-federal partners justify mitigation investments and choose the most cost-effective and reasonable actions. Improved coordination will help the whole community more accurately forecast where mitigation can be effective and when to pursue mitigation investments.
- Make mitigation investment standard practice: Goal 3 calls for the whole community to consider mitigation in all investment decisions, especially for buildings and infrastructure. This includes adopting and enforcing up-to-date building codes, safeguarding lifelines and critical infrastructure, and using and expanding financial products and approaches that transfer and reduce risk. Financial products and approaches could include funding, incentives and opportunities to transfer financial risk.
The HMA Guide considers and addresses some of the Investment Strategy’s goals. Additionally, while the Investment Strategy does not make structural changes to existing federal programs, such as HMA programs, the programs play an important part in reaching the Investment Strategy’s goals. HMA programs support mitigation activities that reduce or eliminate potential losses to state, local, tribal and territorial governments, fostering resilience against the effects of natural disasters.
The Investment Strategy’s principles, which are also relevant to the HMA programs, are:
- The Whole Community: All goals and recommendations require collaboration and commitment by the federal government, non-federal partners and individuals.
The Whole Community includes:- Individuals and families, including those with disabilities.
- Businesses.
- Faith-based and community organizations.
- Nonprofit groups.
- Schools and academia.
- Media outlets.
- All levels of government including federal, state, local, tribal and territorial partners.
- Regional and community planning: The whole community should consider regional and community planning for mitigation activities. This includes public and private planning efforts for land use, the environment, infrastructure, transportation, site planning and urban design. Planning is foundational to identifying and developing sound mitigation activities that can be funded by HMA programs.
- Nature-based solutions and natural assets: The whole community should consider nature-based solutions for cost-effectively managing the impacts of natural hazards. These solutions may provide additional environmental, social and economic benefits. The whole community should also consider protecting natural assets that help with mitigation (e.g., wetlands that reduce the impact of waves on coastal land).
- Linking risk reduction and financial risk transfer: The whole community should better link risk reduction and financial risk transfer mechanisms for natural hazard–related risks. For example, flood and other forms of hazard insurance accelerate recovery time frames to reduce loss by transferring financial risks from disasters. Additionally, insurance providers can increase incentives for policy holders to physically reduce a policy holder’s risks and reduce overall damage, suffering and costs from a disaster.
- Changing conditions: Population growth, development and changing weather conditions will influence mitigation needs and priorities.
- Vulnerable populations: The whole community should ensure vulnerable populations are represented during implementation of Investment Strategy recommendations.