A) Objectives of the pledge:
This pledge relates to the resolution “Climate-Smart Disaster Laws and Policies that Leave No One Behind”. In particular, it seeks to put emphasis on the resolution’s note on the need for assigning clear roles and tasks to community representatives as part of disaster risk management.
Denmark, like other countries, is experiencing more climate-related extreme events, and at the same time citizens are increasingly involved in emergency preparedness and emergency response and take part in prevention initiatives as well. In general, the wish of citizens to spontaneously involve themselves in emergency response efforts or involve themselves in charity related activities on ad-hoc basis is a trending factor within volunteerism.
The ad-hoc engagement of people is often driven by a sense of urgency and a willingness to take direct action. Basically, it is a sense of humanity and wish to help others in need. However, this spontaneous and unorganised action does not necessarily engage well with the well-coordinated and extremely structured emergency response systems of Governments (both at local and national level).
With Denmark taking lead, Nordic countries’ civil protection agencies have recently formulated an initiative on coordination of spontaneous volunteers. The initiative has been formulated in collaboration with relevant sector responsible authorities and their respective Red Cross National Societies and other civil society organisations as well as research institutions. This initiative is well in line with the resolution on “Climate-smart Disaster Laws and Policies that Leave No one Behind” and hence, this pledge also seeks to underline the importance of the Nordic initiative and its further development in a Danish context.
Therefore, to support more efficient solutions on coordination of spontaneous volunteers in climate-related emergencies the signing parties commit to:
– Strengthening relevant Danish frameworks on authorities’ cooperation with the Danish Red Cross to improve coordination of spontaneous volunteering in emergency situations.
– Further develop and implement an operational concept for managing spontaneous volunteers in emergency situations using the Danish Red Cross’ comparative advantage and capacities to mobilize and organize volunteers.
B) Action plan:
The following actions will support the pledge:
– Develop a list of frameworks, including for example policies, guidelines and similar documents as well as legal frameworks, under which it would be relevant to include and/or strengthen a cooperation between sector responsible authorities and the Danish Red Cross on coordination of spontaneous volunteers. The list should include an indication of which processes are needed and who should be involved.
– Develop and describe an operational concept for a reception centre for spontaneous volunteers, and how this could be implemented as part of a Danish Red Cross capacity supplementing relevant authorities in emergency situations
The actions will be initiated and carried out under the current cooperation agreement between the Danish Emergency Management Agency and the Danish Red Cross. The parties will decide on involvement of other partners. Danish Red Cross will take lead.
The time frame being 2020-2023.
C) Indicators for measuring progress:
Progress will be measured by development of the following outputs:
– List of relevant frameworks
– Operational concept of a reception centre for spontaneous volunteers developed as Danish Red Cross capacity.
D) Resource implications:
There will be no direct financial implications of the activities, although the parties will need to allocate time and thus personnel resources for relevant staff members for the cooperation and development of the outputs.
33IC-specific-pledge-MFA-DRC-spontaneous-volunteers-in-Denmark_final-version.doc
