On 20 September, the working group of crisis management, consisting of urban practitioners from 14 municipalities across 9 countries in Southeast Europe (SEE), was set in motion.  The Event gathered 22 participants from Armenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Georgia, Kosovo, Moldova, Montenegro, Serbia and Ukraine. The kick-off introduced participants to the work plan, designed by two international experts, who will be leading the effort and learning process of the group. The event was also dedicated to familiarizing group members with one another and their common challenges or interests in the field of crisis management.

This initiative is part of Connective Cities COVID-19 programme and its objective is to strengthen the cities’ resilience during the COVID-19 pandemic by providing capacity-building activities in the direction of crisis management. For reaching this objective a working group is formed with several primary aims:

1. identification of crisis management, resilience and Covid-19 response challenges in participating municipalities,
2. analysis and definition of the challenges based on experiences, knowledge transfer and international discussion,
3. solutions scan, assessment of resources and support of municipalities in development of applicable actions.

This working group will also allow participants to learn from each other and build a peer network with similar initiatives, giving space for potential future collaborations.

Programme

After a short welcome and insight into this year's Connective Cities COVID-19 programme, Dr. Irakli Samkharadze, Regional Coordinator, GIZ gave word to representatives of Policy and Management Consulting Group (PMCG),  a consultancy agency managing two COVID response working groups in SEE region, who introduced the timeline and the international experts who would be working with the participants throughout the following three months.

Afterwards, the action plan of the group and its goals were introduced by the international consultants Mr. Edmunds Akitis and Mr. Sjirk Meijer. They set the scene for upcoming activities and explained the general methodology and tools to be used during the working process of the group.

As a getting to know each other activity, every urban practitioner participating in the event was given spotlight to introduce themselves, their municipalities and challenges they have come across during their work related to dealing with crises.

Finally, three upcoming workshop dates and themes were agreed upon by the members of the group. These workshops (in the form of presenting ideas and best practices, including the round table discussions) will be a combination of knowledge transfer and stepwise working towards the programme of projects exploiting the crisis management cycle – prevention, preparedness, response and recovery.

The recording of the Kick-off event can be found here.

Outlook

In the coming weeks planned workshops will take place on following occasions:

Workshop 1: identification of crisis management, resilience and Covid-19 response challenges

Workshop 2: analysis and definition of the challenges based on experiences, knowledge transfer and international discussion

Impressions