27 October 2014: Representatives from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Kosovo, Serbia and Turkey agreed to establish a region-wide approach to climate change adaptation and disaster resilience at the conclusion of a two-year project, ‘Building Resilience to Disasters in Western Balkans and Turkey.’

Devastating floods in May 2014 underscored the importance of regional cooperation to these countries. Boyan Kostic, Ministry of Interior, Serbia, explained “After the floods last spring, we fully appreciate that a regional approach to flood management is to be fostered.”

Representatives of the project countries agreed to continue cross-border cooperation and to harmonize and strengthen existing national early warning systems, with the aim of implementing a regional, multi-hazard early warning system. They will also continue information sharing and other cooperation.

Dimitar Ivanov, who was responsible for the project as WMO’s Europe Representative, emphasized the importance of continuing to build cross-border disaster resilience. He said, “effective early warnings helped limit the loss of life from the exceptional spring floods in the Western Balkans, but it will take years for the worst-affected areas to recover from the impact,” adding that climate change is expected to increase extreme precipitation events and heatwaves in the area.

Among its achievements, the project: provided a platform for information exchange at local, national and international levels; strengthened disaster risk management (DRM) capacity through the Exchange of Experts Programme; increased the number of cities from Montenegro and Kosovo in the UNISDR Making Cities Resilient Campaign; and strengthened national meteorological and hydrological services’ capacity to improve forecasting and monitoring of extreme weather. The project also increased technical capacity for drought and flood risk assessment across vulnerable sectors, such as agriculture, energy and water.

The European Commission (EC) co-financed the project through the Instrument for Pre-accession Assistance. The UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) implemented the two-year project, which held its concluding meeting Ankara, Turkey, on 20 October 2014. [WMO Press Release] [Project Website]