About Project

In short

Goal:

To contribute to reducing vulnerability to disasters and to increase the country’s resilience to climate change.

Focus:

• Improving capacities at the national and local level for emergency preparedness and response through upgrading infrastructural and human capacities,
• Improving the institutional coordination at the horizontal and vertical level, upgrading technical and operational capacities,
• Contributing to advanced cooperation across sectors and enabling a faster, better coordinated and more effective response to natural and man-made disasters.

Context:

Disasters can pose threat to human lives and affect Serbia’s economic and environmental standing, diminish the country’s development potential and constitute a risk to economic and social stability. INFORM Global Crisis Severity Index with an average score of 3.5 places Serbia in the group of medium-risk and rather stable countries. Although the applied INFORM methodology assesses Serbian vulnerability as moderately low, it still recognizes institutional and governance shortcomings (scored with 5.2) and DRR (5.7) as having undermining impact on the overall coping capacity. The critical problem of the Serbian Disaster Risk Reduction and Emergency Management System is the fragmentation of the institutional framework, procedures, and insufficient capacities at the central and local level for adequate prevention, preparedness and response to emergency needs of the communities and population.

Expected results:

Procurement of the equipment 

Improved response to forest and wildfires through procurement of 38 specialized firefighting vehicles and equipment;

Improved response and protection of Serbian health care personnel through procurement of 12 ambulance vehicles, 2 decontamination vehicles and 75 sets of highly protective suits;

Organised 15 cargo flights for emergency transport of 721 tons of medical equipment and supplies for combating COVID 19 induced epidemic;

Strengthened technical capacity of MRSS through procurement of specialized equipment, uniforms and rescue vehicles;

Improved flood protection system on critical micro-locations on West Morava River through procurement of mobile dams;

Established first National Disaster Risk Register in line with EU standards for risk-informed urban and investment planning;

Policy development and human capacity building

• 1,100 representatives of Local Self Governments (LSG), civil protection units, Civil Society Organisations (CSO) and members of the local communities from 91 LSGs across Serbia trained on civil protection, disaster risk reduction, post-disaster recovery and climate change adaptation;
• Mountain Rescue Service of Serbia (MRSS) staff trained and accredited for high-risk rescue operations in accordance with the EU standards;
• Strengthened volunteering network and functioning of 900 civil protection members in 18 municipalities and cities of the West Morava River Basin Cooperation;
• Improved consultative process at a local level through engagement of CSOs in prevention and risk management decision-making processes.
• Developed new Disaster Risk Reduction Strategy, PDNA Methodology, improved learning curricula of the Faculty of Security Studies, and developed of the Post-Disaster Reconstruction Impact Assessment of effects of DRR measures 10 years after the catastrophic 2014 floods.