The technical workshop was organized under the project on hazard and crisis management in the Danube Delta (Danube Delta Project - DDP) for the Republic of Moldova, Ukraine and with participation of Romania. The project aims at enhancing and where possible harmonizing the mechanisms and approaches for efficient and effective hazard and crisis management between the three project countries in the Danube Delta. It is funded by the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety and by the German Federal Environment Agency with means of the Advisory Assistance Programme for Environmental Protection in the Countries of Central and Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia. Additional support is provided by other donors.
The first technical workshop on crisis management allowed for a good and necessary exchange of information on national procedures for contingency planning and response to industrial accidents both during the formal sessions with the participants’ presentations and the informal break-out sessions on emergency preparedness and response. It was the first step to advance the cooperation under the crisis management component between the three project countries. The workshop was also joined by Belarussian experts.
The workshop was facilitated by experts from the Netherlands, Poland and France that held a presentation on examples for good practices, facilitated the work in groups during the break-out sessions and moderated or participated respectively in the panel discussion at the end of the workshop. Through their guidance, the workshop participants described procedures for emergency preparedness and response in their countries and identified areas for further improvements in the national and transboundary context.
As a result of the workshop, the project countries (i) acquired clear knowledge of each others legislation, similarities and differences, (ii) got an overview of gaps in their legal frameworks and ideas for improvements, including for the transboundary cooperation and (iii) reached a basic agreement on how to develop and evaluate a scenario for the upcoming table-top exercise in 2012. Through this, the technical workshop helped the project countries to set the basis for the future work under the DDP crisis management component, in particular for the establishment of a joint contingency plan for the Danube Delta and the organisation of the table-top and field exercise.