The context
With the increasing threat from climate change, which will continue to affect the intensity and frequency of extreme weather events, the UCPM aims to foster, including through the Call UCPM-2019-PP-AG , coherence and synergies between the climate change adaptation and disaster management/civil protection agendas.
Under this Call, funding may be awarded to projects submitted under two separate topics: (i) Prevention and (ii) Preparedness, each with its respective objectives, priorities and available budgets.
Keep on reading the article to know about these terms!
Prevention
The term “prevention” refers to any action aimed at reducing risks or mitigating adverse consequences of disasters for people, the environment and property, including cultural heritage.
Prevention is at the core of disaster risk management efforts. Achieving a high level of protection against disasters by preventing or reducing their potential effects, by fostering a culture of prevention and by improving cooperation between civil protection and other relevant services is the first of
four specific objectives set out by the legislation establishing the Union Civil Protection Mechanism.
Preparedness
The term “preparedness” means a state of readiness and capability of human and material means, structures, communities and organizations enabling them to ensure an effective rapid response to a disaster, obtained as a result of action taken in advance.
Preparedness is essential for disaster management. Being well prepared can save lives and reduce the human and economic toll of disasters. To enhance European civil protection preparedness, this Call for Proposals will fund actions, which support the EU and its Member States to implement the objectives of Decision 1313/2013/EU. In particular, as set out in its second specific objective, the UCPM aims to enhance preparedness at Member State and Union level to respond to disasters. The UCPM is intended to improve the level of preparedness of civil protection systems, their personnel and population to facilitate rapid and efficient response in the event of disasters or imminent disasters.
Ber-ready and preparedness
The be-ready project falls under the topic 2 Preparedness and it is financed by the European Commission under the UCPM.
The Be-ready project is focused on providing tools for the preparedness and readiness in facing hazards connected to spills, oil spills, and hazardous material in the sea that could arise from accidents and pollution events in harbor areas and close to the harbor area.
The objective of the project is to develop a Decision Support System that will be provided to Port Authorities and local Authorities to have a forecasting tool able to tackle the future development of eventual spills.