Enhancing institutional co-operation in civil protection in the Euro-Mediterranean region

Source(s): National Civil Protection Department Euro-Mediterranean Partnership Programme on Prevention, Preparedness and Response to Natural and Man-made Disasters

Press release

Second PPRD South Programme Steering Committee Meeting Enhancing institutional co-operation in Civil Protection in the Euro-Mediterranean region, 20 October 2010 - Corinthia Hotel St. George’s Bay - Malta

The Director Generals of the National Civil Protection Authorities of the 27 EU Member States and the 14 Mediterranean and Balkan Programme Partner Countries* will meet in Malta, on 20 October 2010 to make a mid-term review of the actions carried out by the PPRD South Programme and to endorse the proposed work-plan for the year 2011.

The Steering Committee meeting of the 5 million EU-funded Euro-Mediterranean Programme on Prevention, Preparedness and Response to Natural and Man-made Disasters (PPRD South) will be opened by Carmelo Mifsud Bonnici, Maltese Minister of the Interior, Guido Bertolaso, Head of the Italian Civil Protection Department and by Marcus Cornaro, Director of the EuropeAid Cooperation Office of the European Commission.

The meeting, that will sum up the activities carried out by the Programme during the first 18 months of its life, will also see the participation of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and the UN agencies working with disaster management in the Mediterranean region (UNISDR and OCHA).

The Programme’s achievements – whose main objective is to contribute to the development in the Mediterranean region of a Civil Protection culture based on prevention rather than response - include technical assistance missions, study visits, and collaboration activities with the regional network of National Correspondents that represent the 14 countries in the  implementation of the Programme actions. These actions foresee also the development of a regional Risk Atlas and a Civil Protection Manual. Among other results, over 200 civil protection officials from the Partner Countries have participated in the nine workshops and meetings organized since March 2009. They were dedicated to different topics, among which were those on Geographical Information Systems, Technological Disasters, Wildfires, Information in Emergency, Awareness Raising and Crisis Management.

Four out of five Partner Countries have already benefitted from the PPRD South financial support to implement awareness raising activities on the different type of risks in their countries which are involving more than 140,000 housewives and students in Lebanon, Jordan, the occupied Palestinian territory and Egypt. The PPRD South web portal (www.euromedcp.eu), launched as a regional tool for information exchange on civil protection subjects, is hosting already more than 200 information items and has been visited over 10,000 times, while five PPRD South newsletters were released during this period to a Euro-Mediterranean Civil Protection database of over 1,600 contacts.

The meeting will end with the endorsement of the work-plan which includes among other activities the organization of workshops on earthquakes, floods, climate change, operational planning, and a full scale exercise. The meeting will also decide what countries will host some of the future PPRD South actions and workshops both in Europe and in the Mediterranean.


* Albania, Algeria, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Montenegro, Morocco, Palestinian Territories, Syria, Tunisia and Turkey prevention, preparedness, response to natural
and man-made disasters.



Contact:
Alessandro Candeloro, +39 349 0850931 email: info@euromedcp.eu

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