Co-production Through Volunteerism in Emergency Management: Drawing Lessons from Canada’s Syrian Refugee Resettlement Initiative
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.25071/mka7xs12Keywords:
co-production, volunteerism, volunteer management, emergency management, spontaneous volunteers, resettlement, whole-of-societyAbstract
The field of emergency management has been increasingly encouraging the notion of emergency management as a shared, co-productive responsibility, with all members of the society having a role to play. In such whole-of-society efforts, volunteers play a direct role in the co-production of response outcomes. Canada’s mass resettlement of Syrian refugees in 2015 is a case in point, as Canadians rallied en masse to ensure the successful resettlement of thousands of Syrian refugees. In exploring the role of volunteers in this co-productive initiative, there are two important lessons for those in emergency management: The first involves learning from the volunteer management strategies implemented by resettlement agencies, which are applicable for any responding entity tasked with managing whole-of-society response efforts. The second (and perhaps more important) lesson is that those managing whole-of-society response efforts must recognize that value is co-created through three key relationships, a triad between volunteers, response entities, and those directly impacted by a disaster. Each of these relationships must be better understood and managed in order to achieve more effective emergency response outcomes in whole-of-society initiatives.
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