On 31 May 2021, the Jean Monnet Module Project Team organized the open lecture titled “Programme for Improving National Early Warning System within the Pro News EU Program”. The invited guest lecturer was Ms. Miranda Deda, Director of the Albanian branch of CIMA Research Foundation.
Ms. Deda introduced to the students the CIMA Foundation, their work in Albania and the overall objective of PRO NEWS, which is to ensure increased resilience to floods by strengthening National Early Warning System of Albania and improving disaster prevention in line with EU Good Practices. She discussed with the students the progress of the programme, its main achievements and components, with a specific focus on the areas that need more attention in the future for disaster prevention in Albania. In Albania, rivers present the biggest flood risk, and have the greatest impact in the agricultural sector. Consequently, Ms. Deda emphasized the importance of risk mapping in accordance to the provision of EU Floods Directive and the Regional Guidelines for implementation of EU Floods Directive. She informed the students that the data and maps are accessible for all the stakeholders and that the information provided in this dataset will help the students in their future research work. The project contributed to the increased planning capacity for emergency management by upgrading the Emergency Planning at Prefectural level. Through one of its components PRO NEWS Programme, sustained and prepared an action plan to support Albania in accessing the Union Civil Protection Mechanism. Improving the Awareness and the Resilience of the Public on early warning was one of the components of this programme. She showed the students the results of the questionnaires that is used to assess the public knowledge on Early Warning System and disasters risk and the risk perception of all the stakeholders in case of a disaster and what were the main information sources regarding the warning system in Albania. All this information presented by Ms. Deda guided the students in performing the assignment “Risk Perception and Risk Communication in prone disasters areas in Albania” in the subject of Disaster Risk Management in the framework of EU integration. The open lecture presentation can be accessed under the following link:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1tqOD6dqCsD2nXzZHSPaX2NqjWohcxmZ1/view?usp=sharing
