On the 1st of January 2016 the CRISMAS project has started, with thanks to a contribution from the Civil Protection Financial Instrument of the European Union. CRISMAS stands for the Community for Risk Management and Assessment. The CRISMAS project is aimed at helping local and regional governments across Europe to work on disaster risk management. The Safety Region South-Holland South is lead partner of the project and coordinates the project in close cooperation with its Dutch knowledge partner ITINERIS health & safety (formerly Houdijk Consultancy). Both partners have previous experience with EU projects on risk management and disaster risk reduction in the Interreg IVC project MiSRaR, the DG ECHO project PRISMA and the EU Peer Review Programme on Disaster Risk Management.
The Safety Region and ITINERIS will provide the overall project management and guidance and expertise for the implementing partners. The implementing partners are four local/regional governments across Europe: the province of Forlì-Cesena (Italy), PREDA (NGO) of the Prijedor municipality (Bosnia and Herzegovina), the City of Stavanger (Norway) and the district of Ungheni (Moldova). During the project they will each develop an all hazard risk assessment and risk management strategy for their respective territories. The lessons learned during the project will be shared amongst the partners and with the wider CRISMAS online community of public peers across Europe.
CRISMAS is not meant to be just a project, but the starting point of a structural community within the EU. The aim is to start an EU community of public experts on the subject of risk assessment and risk management, supporting each other with further developing their risk assessment and risk management capacities. The focus is primarily on local and regional governments, but also national public experts can participate. This virtual community consists of an online discussion forum and database for the sharing of good practices.
More information can be found at www.crismaseurope.eu