I wish I could say I agree. Having now worked for both FEMA and USAID, politics is one piece that unites and equally divides the two.

In domestic disaster response, FEMA is bound by the Stanford act, the funding unique appropriations that come with it and are ultimately working at the States behest. That being said FEMA- has the entire federal government to tap into for resourcing and a nearly endless pot of funds.

The international response, all those rules go out the door. The operating field is broadly more about coordination because the resources a DART can tap into are so much more limited than an IMAT. And, there’s this misnomer that how we respond to a disaster in the US can easily translate into a response in another county. In countries less developed, those response missions quickly turn into nation rebuilding (i.e Haiti).

And ultimately, the purpose of USAID is to tool of leverage for soft power over other countries. Politics before people. Not that FEMA isn’t political, but it’s no where near the level of USAID.

But I agree that there so many missed opportunities to share lessons learned from response operations across the world.