Over the past few years, the Western Balkans and Türkiye have faced increasing disasters, and with climate change, these events are set to grow more frequent and severe. To tackle this, the 3-year EU-funded IPA Floods and Fires (IPA FF) program has worked to strengthen disaster risk management in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo*, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, and Türkiye.
The program concludes these days with the final event taking place in Brussels: an opportunity to present the results and lessons learned from the program to an enlarged audience, and to guide the participants through program sustainability.
Our experts presented the final reports of WP 1.3 (Development of procedures and agreements to include Early Warning Systems (EWS) in local/central Emergency Response Plans) with the Italian Department of Civil Protection and of WP 2.1 (Technical support for development of Forest Fires Risk Assessment and Forest Fire Risk Management Capabilities).
In fact, split into two components – floods and forest fires – the program enhanced regional cooperation and institutional coordination from national to the local level.
As Amir Sendič from Ministry of Security of Bosnia and Herzegovina said at the final event: “Local authorities have a critical and fundamental role in linking Early warnings to Early Actions. The Command Post Exercise and Training of Trainers organized within IPA FF contributed to strengthen the capacities of local authorities to act upon early warnings”. Cyrille Honoré from World Meteorological Organization acknowledged the efforts of IPA FF in promoting a multi-stakeholder approach to EWS: “Hydrometeorological services and civil protection authorities need to work together and sustain regular conversation on daily base”.
The programme also provided technological tools and knowledge for Forest Fire Risk Mapping and the prediction of forest fire spreading over short time frame. Understanding the processes behind forest fires helps to identify priorities and actions. Not all vegetation burn at the same way and same velocity, what are the most exposed asset that we want to protect, where are the hot spot of forest fires, require high resolution modeling and reliable local data.
“Forest Fire risk modeling is required for financial preparedness”, said the representative of the World Bank, Z. Stanton, and IPAFF gave a solid contribute towards this direction.
Through workshops, training, expert exchanges, equipment procurement, and awareness campaigns, stronger and more resilient communities have been built that are more prepared to face future challenges.
Find out more:
Here the report Establishing effective links between early warnings and early action: general criteria for floods.
Here the report Technical Guidelines for Forest Fire Risk Assessment
*This designation is without prejudice to positions on status and is in line with UNSCR 1244 and the ICJ Opinion on the Kosovo Declaration of Independence.