Executive summary

Governments play a crucial role in strengthening the resilience of their populations, communities and critical infrastructure networks: managing crises is a key part of this. Recent crises, such as industrial accidents, large-scale flooding, terrorist attacks, cyber attacks, global pandemics, earthquakes and tsunamis, have challenged political leadership and risk managers in many countries. The icelandic volcanic ash cloud, the great east japan earthquake and subsequent tsunami and Fukushima crises, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the sinking of the ferry Sewol in Korea, the Tianjin industrial blast in China or the European refugee crisis are vivid examples of challenging crises.