Experimenting codesign and participatory emergency planning and response

PROTERINA-3Évolution is a project developed by a cross-border partnership involving 5 regions in 2 countries and funded by the Interreg Italy-France Maritime Programme 2014-2020. The goal of the project is to strengthen local contexts response capacity to flood risk by strengthening the participation of public authorities and communities.

As part of the project, we accompanied CIMA Foundation – lead partner in the international consortium – in the creation of resilient local communities through two highly complementary actions:
Research, analysis and definition of municipal and regional scale strategies and methods to actively engage local populations in preparedness and flood risk management.
Design and facilitation of innovative emergency planning participatory processes in three pilot areas in the region of Liguria.

These actions, that included activities of desk and field research, awareness raising, preparedness exercises, participatory site walkthroughs and participatory mapping, codesign with users and local actors (schools, institutions, local residents and civil defence professionals and volunteers), allowed us to develop effective and shared recommendations for emergency response and management.

We developed emergency preparedness and response tools, published two toolkits, one specifically targeting schools; designed and prototyped with users an awareness raising game for schools and a kit for students (the preparedness backpack) which was given to the schools that participated in the project.

The PROTERINA-3Évolution partnership is composed by: CIMA Foundation, Regional Government of Liguria, Metropolitan City of Genoa, Office de l’Environnement de la Corse (OEC), Mairie d’Ajaccio, SDIS-2B, Région PACA, Département du Var, Ville de Nice, Regional Government of Sardinia, Regional Government of Tuscany, LaMMA Consortium, ANCI Toscana and the River Arno Basin Authority.