The first year of the project has provided a good base for moving forward and finalizing the project’s results. The mid-term project review summarizes the findings and results of the project so far (February 2020). Read the mid-term review here.
One main objective of the project is to improve the capacity to understand, assess, and treat current and future climate change related risks on the local level, focusing on the Baltic Sea Region conditions.
Another objective is to increase practical risk management capabilities of local authorities, creating positive cascading effects through training civil protection experts and city planners, who will use the developed training material to enhance the capacity of urban communities.
The third objective is to initiate a region-wide policy dialogue on the UN Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction to form cross-sectorial cooperation between different levels of governance and for greater policy coherence on climate risk assessments.
A few highlights from the mid-term review
- A portfolio of selected climate change risk assessment methodologies has been elaborated based on scientific articles.
- Guidelines for climate change risk assessment and risk management were prepared. The main goal of the guidelines is to show the entire process of risk assessment and risk management at the local level, particularly in cities.
- Developing the training courses’ curriculum in disaster risk reduction for civil protection experts and city planners was started.
- Two contact lists were compiled to map out who to contact in the target countries for the policy dialogue.
- Three reports were produced for the policy dialogue.
- Various policy dialogue sessions were organized with representatives from all the countries in the BSR.
- The project activities and results were promoted in several events, newsletters, digital platforms and social media in the BSR and Europe.
The CASCADE project contributes to the objective “build up resilience and prevention towards emergencies and threats at the local level” of Policy Area Secure within the EU Strategy for the BSR, and it applies the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030. Nine partners representing seven Baltic Sea Region countries are involved in the project. The materials and results of CASCADE are replicable for all Baltic Sea Region countries. In July 2019, the project was granted EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region’s Flagship Status under Policy Area Secure.
