DPPI SEE: 41st Regional Meeting
Thursday, 15th April, the 41st Regional Meeting of the Disaster Preparedness and Prevention Initiative for South East Europe (DPPI SEE) was conducted as an online conference. Topics were the new EUCPM legislation protocol, the presentation of the UNDP-UNDRR joint report on the civil protection response to COVID-19, and at afternoon the panel discussion “Simulation exercises in times of Covid-19”.
The meeting was chaired by Mr. Vlatko Jovanovski, head of the DPPI SEE secretariat. DPPI SEE is the leading network to foster regional co-operation across the region in disaster preparedness and prevention. It addresses both natural and man-made disasters and seeks to operate without creating new structures or layers of bureaucracy.
I had the honour, to present the approach of INDIMA-project: Go digital, outlining a mainly digital and VR supported project. INDIMA is a project funded by the EU, DG ECHO within the framework of “Knowledge Network” to develop an integrated new concept for Disaster Risk Management. For the implemented simulation exercise there are two variants in preparation: a VR-supported tabletop exercise (TTX) with the attendance of 30-40 persons – or if the pandemic situation makes it necessary – a fully virtual simulation exercise instead of the classic TTX. The decision will be done in the next months to be able to have a proper time to prepare the initial situation, script, and VR scenarios.
“This decision brings considerably more work for the INDIMA’s project management team but creates an important experience and a huge amount of know-how for training and exercises for the future. Exercise organisers must consider these facts carefully, not to lose the particularly important result: knowing the acting people in crisis“.
Geir Ellingson, (presentation on picture) representative of DG ECHO: „The partial use of new tools have increased connections between projects, save time and cost, but reduces the interaction and network possibilities.“
