The Foreign Service Journal, May 2017

38 MAY 2017 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL deal with pandemics. It is essential that the State Department continue to press forward energetically with implementation of our own lessons learned so that we can more quickly, nimbly and effectively support our interagency and international partners while protecting the safety of our own personnel in the field. Recent Advances In the months after Ebola faded from the headlines, State forged ahead with testing and adaptation of solutions in real time as we responded to new outbreaks of Zika and yellow fever. As a fundamental first step, the Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs (OES) established a small, permanent Pandemic Response Teamwith a three-pronged mission: to coordinate department-wide responses to outbreaks, build internal capacity and support strategic initiatives around global response capability. To date, the department’s response to outbreaks has been largely ad hoc, as evidenced by the hodgepodge of “task force” models that have been established—the Avian Influenza Action Group in 2005, the Ebola Coordination Unit in 2014 and the Zika Coordination Team in 2016. The absence of a defined model has repeatedly resulted in a scramble to develop coordination mech- anisms and establish leadership in the early days of an outbreak. OES’ Pandemic Response Team seeks to address this challenge as a central tenet of its mission to build State Department capac- ity. Together with the Bureau of Medical Services (MED) and the Operations Center’s Crisis Management and Strategy Office, the team has now launched a multitiered response mechanism that mirrors best practices at agencies like the CDC and integrates pandemic response into the department’s broader crisis man- agement structures. This newmodel provides a framework for elevating the depart- ment’s response posture from “steady state” monitoring by the Pandemic Response Teamup the ladder to establishment of an Operations Center Task Force and, potentially, creation of a sepa- rate coordination office along the lines of the Ebola Coordination Unit. Outbreaks have complex policy implications, and they may ebb and flow over a period of many months; the goal of this model is to provide predictability while maintaining maximumflexibility and ensuring a judicious expenditure of resources. In addition, a new Public Health Working Group, co-chaired by OES and MED under the auspices of the State Department Crisis Management Council, brings together representatives from across the department to evaluate outbreaks and provide advice to senior officials on appropriate responses. Emergency Action Commit- tees at posts utilize tripwires to determine responses to any given threat; in a similar manner, the working group relies on a set of decision criteria to assess the risks posed by a potential outbreak. This decision tool incorporates criteria such as the overall public health threat level, the extent of U.S. mobilization required, public perceptions, existing capacity within State Department offices, expected impact on post staffing and U.S. nationals From left, Ambassador Steven Browning, Jeremy Konyndyk (head of USAID's Office of Disaster Assistance) and Dirk Dijkerman (head of USAID’s Ebola Secretariat) testify about funding for the Ebola crisis before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Appropriations on Feb. 11, 2015. COURTESYOFGWENTOBERT