Strengthening Civil Protection Systems through Volunteer Capacities

ended

With increasing numbers of disasters and growing needs for better response capacities in Europe and its neighbourhood, civil protection authorities and governments are looking to partner with volunteer organisations in addressing these needs. In the Southern Caucasus region (Armenia/Azerbaijan/Georgia) as well as in Ukraine the Red Cross societies have implemented programmes and projects in the last decade with the objective to establish volunteer teams to strengthen disaster preparedness and response capacities. However, the systematic integration of these volunteer response teams into governmental civil protection systems still needs to be improved. The StrengthVOL project’s main outcome, linking to Priority 1 of the call, will be to develop action plans for the increased deployability of volunteer teams in Armenia, Georgia and Ukraine. On the basis of existing recommendations and lessons learnt in the countries a research report and a set of guiding principles for the development of cooperation models & agreements between the national Red Cross societies and the CP authorities will be compiled. After signing these agreements, the models will be piloted by recruiting volunteer teams that will be assigned to newly established stations for fire & rescue services in Armenia and Georgia or to new security centres in Ukraine. Building on the developed models for the integration of volunteer teams and the evaluated pilots, action plans for increased deployability of volunteer teams will provide the basis for rolling out similar volunteer teams throughout Armenia, Georgia and Ukraine after the completion of the project. The impact of the project will be that remote areas will be better served through a volunteer-based system complementing efforts of the national CP authorities, the density of the national CP networks will be increased, remote areas become more self-sufficient in respect of emergency response capacities and response times will be considerably reduced.