Participants discussed the development and implementation of disaster risk reduction strategies and disaster risk management plans at the local level and the critical role of coordinating governance structures such as National Platforms for Disaster Risk Reduction.

The European Union encourages more coordination across sectors and stakeholders, working to increase the sharing of best practice in disaster risk reduction. One of the main priorities of the Sendai Framework is the need for improved risk governance, through established and active National Platforms which have assisted in the delivery of several EU legislative requirements in the field of disaster risk management.

Beyond activity implementation, understanding progress through regular monitoring is critical. An exploratory exercise by the European Commission and UNDRR demonstrated which global Sendai targets and monitoring indicators may be directly or indirectly linked to a wealth of EU legislation including policies and instruments in civil protection, climate and environment, to infrastructure, agriculture, security and research.           

The participants were from Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Denmark, Estonia, Greece, Finland, Croatia, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Latvia, Luxembourg, Montenegro, Malta, Norway, North Macedonia, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Sweden, Slovenia, Slovakia, Serbia, Turkey, and UK.

The meeting also announced that the 2020 European Civil Protection Forum will take place in Brussels next October, and the 2021 European Forum for Disaster Risk Reduction (EFDRR) will take place in Portugal (dates to be announced).

Date:

17 Oct 2019

Sources:

United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction - Regional Office for Europe (UNDRR ROE)