Introduction
The occurrence of disasters in developed and developing countries is inevitable and leaves various consequences and health, economic and social problems for people and governments. The center for research on the epidemiology of accidents and disasters reported that in 2023, about 399 natural disasters, including earthquakes, volcanoes, floods, landslides, droughts, fires, etc., were reported, resulting in 86,473 deaths, about 1.93 million people affected, and economic losses of nearly $203 billion. Asia accounted for more than 43 percent of these accidents, 73 percent of deaths and 66 percent of people affected by accidents in 2023.
In each country, the policies, laws, and regulations of the organization are the main determinants of the direction of movement, frameworks, and dos and don'ts. Smart and precise policies, by specifying responsibilities and coordinated actions, provide a basis for increasing the required capabilities, distributing equipment and resources, and evaluating risk reduction activities. Each country's crisis management policies are defined and established based on the culture, rules, and principles of the society, and the foundation of each country's crisis management foundations and programs is also laid within the framework of its policy principles. In Iran, after the Bam earthquake in 2003 and the need to organize crisis management in the country, the Supreme Leader approved the general policies of the system in the field of "prevention and reduction of risks from natural disasters and unforeseen events" in 9 paragraphs on 03/02/2005, and these policies were announced on 25/09/2005.
Considering the nearly two decades since the announcement of these policies and the great losses suffered due to the occurrence of accidents and disasters, the need to evaluate the performance of existing centers and the extent to which these policies have had an impact on improving the performance of these centers has become more felt than ever before. The present study was conducted to investigate and identify the implementation challenges of these policies and to provide suggestions for their improvement in order to provide useful information to policymakers and senior managers of the country in order to review policies and laws.

Methods
To achieve the goal of explaining the implementation challenges of the country's crisis management policies, a qualitative study was used using semi-structured interviews and qualitative content analysis based on the Landman and Granheim approach. Interviews were conducted with 32 key individuals through purposeful sampling and with maximum diversity from experts and experienced people and relevant managers at the national level, fourteen working groups and various organizations. Data analysis was conducted using conventional content analysis and in accordance with the inductive method simultaneously with data collection and based on the Landman and Landman approach in five steps. MAXQDA software was used for data management and to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the data, Lincoln and Guba criteria were used.

Results
By analyzing the data, 265 initial codes were extracted, which were divided into 5 main challenge categories (gaps in policy-making, weaknesses in policy implementation, limited financial resources, deficiencies in coordination and information management, inefficient attitude at the decision-making and decision-making levels, and 36 sub-challenges in the country's crisis management. The lack of a coherent, comprehensive, and forward-looking system of policies, the absence of a comprehensive roadmap and planning to advance policies, the lack of clarity in the authorities and responsibilities of organizations, the lack of budget priority allocation for crisis programs, the weakness in the coordination role of the crisis management organization, and the weakness in the monitoring and evaluation system of organizations were among the most important sub-challenges.

Conclusion
This study examined the implementation challenges of notified disaster and incident policies. The results show that the implementation of crisis management programs in the country at the policymaking, planning and implementation levels is accompanied by challenges and problems in organizations.
The following suggestions are made to strengthen policies and guarantee their implementation in the country.
Given the new international approaches to disaster and incident risk management as well as international documents and assignments, it is necessary to review notified policies. General policies should cover all phases of the disaster and incident risk management cycle (preparedness, response, damage reduction and recovery) as well as types of national disasters (floods, traffic accidents, droughts, agricultural hazards, cyber-attacks and epidemics.

Ethical Considerations
Compliance with ethical guidelines
Informed consent was obtained from the participants, and their confidentiality was respected.

Funding
This article was extracted from a research project funded by the Secretary of the Expediency Discernment Council and implemented by the Health in Emergency and Disaster Research Center in Iran.

Authors' contributions
All authors contributed equally to the conception and design of the study, data collection and analysis, interpretation of the results, and drafting of the manuscript. Each author approved the final version of the manuscript for submission.

Conflicts of interest
The authors declared no conflict of interest.




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