CBSS at the EUSBSR Annual Forum 2024 in Visby

Parallel Session 1

Time: 11:15-12:45, 30 October 2024
Venue: Greenroom
Organisers: PA Bioeconomy and PA Secure
Description: How can we ensure secure food supply in the event of a major crisis? What dimensions of food security like availability or affordability should be envisaged by what means? Who is responsible for it? Should we rely on local production or global trade? What trade-offs and costs may appear?

The workshop will examine how food security and preparedness in Europe have been influenced by recent changes in geopolitics, focusing on the Baltic Sea Region (BSR). Food security concerns individuals, but also regional, national, macroregional, and international policies. The workshop will introduce these different levels and start a conversation on how to improve food security in the BSR, both in the short and in the long term.

This workshop is intended to offer both a theoretical and policy background while enabling participants to engage in group work. The organisers hope that this innovative cross-sectoral, multi-disciplinary approach, resulting from Policy Areas Bioeconomy and Secure joint initiative, will foster networking and lead to project proposals.

Parallel Session 3

Time: 16:45-18:15, 30 October 2024
Venue: Wisby (Auditorium)
Organiser: Council of the Baltic Sea States (CBSS)

Communities form the backbone of resilient societies. Cohesion, belonging, trust and the ability to cooperate are only some of the qualities that communities need to function effectively under stress and to overcome hardship together. Local authorities play a key role in coordinating, communicating and creating conditions for citizens to build the traits, skills and bonds needed to thrive in the face of challenges. Meanwhile, civil protection has become a top priority for all governments in the region in light of the Russian war. Rapid climate change and weather-related threats also increasingly pose a threat to local communities.

How can the narratives of civil protection and social resilience be united in practice? What formats for learning, development and exchange exist in the BSR? What can the experiences of Ukraine teach us about communities in crisis? And what role does culture, cohesion and identity play? What does the “whole-of-society” approach look like in practice? Join researchers, national agencies for civil protection, local authorities, and Ukrainian stakeholders in a conversation on how to integrate various resilience narratives into a regional understanding of comprehensive security.

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Parallel Session 4

Time: 11:00-12:30, 31 October 2024
Venue: Wisby (Auditorium)
Organisers: Council of the Baltic Sea States (CBSS) and Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency (MSB), co-coordinators of PA Secure

This panel discussion will focus on how the Baltic Sea states can work together to ensure a resilient, safe and secure region in the context of an increasingly challenging security landscape. Involving high-level decision-makers representing the national, regional and local levels, the panel will delve into how these efforts, including ones in the context of ongoing total/civil defence efforts, can ensure that the region remains an attractive area for people to live in.

The dialogue will focus on the vital role that civil society can play in further enhancing resilience nationally and across the entire region. Among other things, the panel will explore the essential role that individual citizens, voluntary organisations, municipalities and other actors have to play in contributing to a flexible, resilient system at regional level that is equipped to confront all kinds of risks ranging from the ordinary to the extraordinary. The panel will also discuss how we can better coordinate our efforts with civil society and what role macro-regional strategies can play in facilitating this coordination.

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