Case Study: Plan Alignment

Sagax Associates has been collaborating with FEMA and the United States Department of Commerce Economic Development Administration (USEDA) on plan alignment specifically in the U.S. Virgin Islands.  We focused on aligning economic development and resilience plans with FEMA’s Hazard Mitigation Plan (HMP)—known in the Virgin Islands as the Hazard Mitigation and Resilience Plan (HMRP).  At the headquarters level, we worked with FEMA Region 2 contractors examining “crosswalk” concepts between USEDA’s Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy (CEDS) and FEMA’s Hazard Mitigation Plan (HMP). 

The USEDA and FEMA have identified the value of aligning and integrating the CEDS and the FEMA Hazard Mitigation Plan processes. These agencies have been collaborating on plan requirements of both plans for grantees to access respective program funding streams. With FEMA, USEDA, and our team in the USVI, we determined that aligning the CEDS and HMP processes had several benefits including: 

• Increased access to federal economic resilience and mitigation resources 
• Decreased administrative burden on communities and regions 
• Improved coordination that facilitates participation among more stakeholders.  

When developing the outcomes for plan alignment research for USEDA, our ultimate goal was to provide a broad inventory of ongoing plans in the USVI and develop best practices to determine cross-cutting processes, policies, procedures, priorities, requirements, data, engagement, and outcomes. We are assisting USVI research efforts and facilitating the “alignment” and synchronization of current and future planning initiatives. We proposed the development of a database compiling past, current, and proposed plans, strategies and initiatives in the USVI. For each plan, the contracting team is identifying the responsible party, the purpose of the plan, funding sources, key partners and stakeholders, current status (completed, ongoing or proposed), and completion dates. 

The contract team assessed the plans and planning environment and explained our findings of the plan alignment collection, assessment, outcomes, challenges, opportunities, etc. to advocate for plan alignment framework policies in the future through best practices and lessons learned.  We proposed the following objectives:

• A research platform of plans and initiatives that will serve as a resource for current and future planning activities 
• Provide enhanced collaboration and information sharing among stakeholders
• Integration of planning efforts to facilitate a more integrated recovery program for USVI
• Leverage resources and technical assistance for USVI agencies based on cross-sector identified priority projects and policies 
• Inform grantmakets, particularly federal agencies, opportunities for alignment within plan regulations/guidelines across all plans (such as timelines, deliverables, stakeholder committees) 
• Inform plan development efforts and promote actionable opportunities for territorial agencies

Sagax has provided recommended actions that federal agencies and USVI leadership may take to improve collaborative strategic resilience and recovery planning in the USVI. As such, we engaged in the following activities:

• Reviewed ongoing and existing plans in USVI 
• Researched collaborative resilience planning through academic, professional industry, non-governmental and federal agency documents
• Reached out to federal partners regarding their standardized plans and planning efforts in the USVI
• Reviewed gold standard CEDS prepared by organizations that have aligned their plans to gauge best practices and lessons learned on plan alignment and collaboration
• Reviewed other island CEDS and small island nation strategic planning efforts for the unique planning conditions of islands 

We have provided the following outcomes in this document based on findings from the aforementioned activities:

• Recommendations for federal agencies to consider to support the USVI with collaborative strategic planning as well as higher level considerations for federal agencies to promote collaborative planning in general.
• Repository focusing on ocean economy plans in the USVI as a pilot for both territory leadership and federal agencies to consider using as a model.
• Roadmap of steps the USVI can take to promote collaborative planning towards plan alignment.