Ministry of Emergency Situations
of the Republic of Armenia

The Ministry of Emergency Situations in cooperation with the EU Twinning Project on “Enhancing Civil Protection in Armenia” held a seminar dedicated to “Improved planning, coordination, and implementation of public awareness in Disaster Risk Reduction, DRR”.

It was chaired by r/s colonel Gurgen Martirosyan, Head of the Department of Civil Defense and Disaster Risk Reduction of the Rescue Service of MES, and Anastasia Ezerets, Resident Advisor of EU Twinning Project. Ann-Charlotte Carlqvist, expert from the 2.4 sub-component, r/s major Lianna Abrahamyan, Head of the Information and Statistics Division of CMNC, Davit Ghlijyan, advisor at the Division of Information and Public Relations, coordinator of separate functions at the structural subdivisions, and r/s major Artur Vardanyan, instructor of the OS Division of CMNC presented reports.

Public awareness is one of the sub-results of the EU Twinning project component 2. Within this sub-result, an “Action Plan on public awareness” has been developed by the joint efforts of the EU twinning expert from Sweden Ann-Charlotte Carlqvist together with the working group of the Ministry of Emergency Situations of RA. The Action Plan focuses on public awareness, how to increase crisis preparedness, overcome the crises and reduce disaster risks in the RA.

Within the sub-result period a brochure on public awareness “If Crisis comes” was prepared and presented, the Armenian pilot version of which has been adapted to the Armenian reality based on the Sweden’s experience. The purpose of the brochure is to improve the capacities of the population in overcoming the disasters and to increase the preparedness of disaster resilience through public awareness.

By the way, in April 2022, MES also conducted a survey in the settlements of Ashotsk and Khachik to see the big picture of the current public awareness of disaster risk reduction in Armenia. The results showed that the respondents seem to be aware of which disasters are more common in their region.

Statistically, earthquakes, fires and traffic accidents are among the top three emergency situations.

During its two-year long cooperation with the Ministry of Emergency Situations, the Twinning Project has successfully conducted numerous productive projects on awareness and communication, as well as trainings for the employees of MES to support the improvement of public awareness field, to find out the gaps of the field, and to develop short-term, medium-term and long-term Action Plans in case of emergency situations.