RiA-ENGAGE

• Linking strategically to the Interreg Baltic Sea Region-funded CREWS project, promoting cross-border exchange between BSR countries and Ukraine.
• Leveraging BSR expertise in community disaster preparedness while learning from Ukraine’s decentralised, grassroots-driven civil society. Unlike Sweden’s structured state–civil society model, Ukraine’s wartime experience underscores the importance of institutional trust and self-reliant preparedness — offering invaluable lessons for BSR’s crisis resilience.
• Sharing best practices and challenges from local and regional authorities to develop collaborative approaches between public and civil actors.
• Shaping DRR policies that integrate civil society and enhance societal resilience on the national level.
• Strengthening crisis preparedness through and with civil society organisations and response by addressing community needs and supporting public authorities.

• Developing template for cooperation mechanism for public authorities and civil society in DRR.
• Developing concept of training programme and materials on the cooperation mechanism.
• Piloting the cooperation mechanism in military and extreme weather scenarios.
• Building knowledge among public authorities and NGOs about the DRR cooperation mechanism.
• Training current and future experts in the BSR and Ukraine on integrating the tools into their daily work.
• Generating a participatory toolkit including good practices from Sweden, Estonia, and Ukraine.
• Connecting project results to policy level through stakeholder consultations.
• Transferring and communicating the project solution through relevant networks, platforms and projects.

In the RiA-ENGAGE project, CBSS has the role of project lead and contributes by:

1. Connecting the RiA-ENGAGE consortium to the Interreg Baltic Sea Region-funded CREWS project and widening thereby the expert input to the cooperation model.
2. Conducting stakeholder consultations and following stakeholder engagement strategy to promote the cooperation mechanism.
3. Supporting Ukraine and facilitating experience exchange between the BSR and Ukraine.

Ukraine and the BSR face similar challenges in disaster risk reduction. While disaster risk management traditional falls on public authorities, increasing negatives effect of climate change and the ongoing war in Ukraine, have highlighted the important role of civil society and volunteers in disaster risk reduction.

The partners have worked together on previous projects, most notably VOALA, Civil Protection Faculty, and BSR NOVA, working on cross-border cooperation and civil society engagement in the field of civil protection.

The partner’s strong cooperation and extensive expertise lay good foundations for RiA-ENGAGE. The project leverages these established relationships to strengthen disaster resilience and ensure the effective integration of civil society actors into disaster management frameworks across Estonia, Sweden, and Ukraine.