The Disaster Assistance Support Program (DASP) was created in 1985 to provide the U.S. Agency for International Development, Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance (USAID/OFDA) with essential technical support in disaster response management, planning, operations, preparedness, and prevention.
The USAID/OFDA coordinates responses to dozens of foreign disasters each year and recognized that both the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management (BLM), with their extensive emergency response capability and experience in wildland firefighting, had unique capabilities and resources that would be applicable in any type of disaster situation. Because the Forest Service developed and implements the Incident Command System (now the Command and Management component of the National Incident Management System), this partnership was originally forged to leverage the Forest Service’s significant expertise in emergency management systems in order to build and improve USAID/OFDA’s disaster response capabilities.
Over the past two decades, the role of the DASP has expanded to include emergency support functions such as training, developing and improving USAID/OFDA’s methodologies for disaster response, and coordinating USAID and Embassy disaster preparedness. With full program funding from USAID/OFDA, the DASP consists of seven full-time staff providing services in four key areas:
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