Continuity of Operations (COOP) is a set of policies, procedures, and capabilities that enable an organization, whether a Nation, business, not-for-profit, or a community group, to keep essential functions running during and after a disruptive event.
The goal isn’t to prevent disruptions (that is risk‑management and resilience planning); it’s to ensure that critical services can continue, recover quickly, and minimize impact on rightsholders, partners, relations, members, citizen, and stakeholders.
Every household knows that life can throw sudden curveballs like a power outage, a burst pipe, or a severe storm. To stay safe and keep daily life moving, families prepare a go kit filled with flashlights, batteries, bottled water, a spare phone charger, a first‑aid kit, and a list of important phone numbers.
They don’t keep the kit because they expect the lights to go out every day; they keep it so that when something unexpected happens, they can still cook a meal, call for help, and keep the kids comfortable until normalcy returns.
A Continuity‑of‑Operations (COOP) plan works the same way for an organization.
The “emergency kit” consists of backup servers, alternate work locations, documented procedures, and trained staff. It isn’t used in ordinary operations, but when a disruption strikes, like a cyber‑attack, a disaster, or if a building floods the organization can reach into its kit, switch to the spare resources, follow the saved instructions, and keep serving its customers just like a family keeps the lights on and the kettle boiling during a blackout.