Micro, Small-to-medium sized enterprises (hereafter “SMEs”) are not adequately addressed in any of the current scorecards, including the UNDRR’s Disaster Resilience Scorecard for Cities. Most existing matrices that track private sector interactions typically merge large companies as well as SMEs as they evaluate and catalogue existing frameworks, especially public/private partnerships. These are inadequate for several reasons.

First, SME operational models (particularly those of micro-enterprises) do not closely resemble those of larger companies, and existing preparedness, response, and recovery schemes do not create an economy of scale that fit into a realistic SME operational model. Second, SMEs do not have the financial resources or access to equity markets (and therefore political or economic influence) that would permit them to host full-time emergency management teams.

This scorecard seeks to create a clear evaluative mechanism to distinguish SME interaction with existing public sector disaster and emergency management agencies from private sector interactions generally (which may include SME as well as large companies). The Addendum can be used in conjunction with the UNDRR Scorecard or as a standalone.