the former Yugoslav Republic of MACEDONIA

11 May 2012 - When a large rock fell from the hills of Veles damaging a historic church, the local authorities in the city of Veles knew they had to take urgent measures to prevent this from happening again. They joined forces with UNDP and stabilized rocks in four locations in the city that were posing an immediate threat to the local population.

 “Thanks to this project, implemented with UNDP’s support over the past two years, the rocks were stabilized on time. Not only did we manage to protect a valuable historic monument, the Church of St. Pantelejmon dating from 1840, but also the homes of people leaving nearby”, Veles Mayor Goran Petrov says.

“The municipality of Veles has been among the first municipalities to allocate its own funds for disaster risk reduction activities. They understood the importance of investing today for a safer tomorrow: one dollar for prevention saves 7 dollars for recovery”, UNDP Deputy Resident Representative Alessandro Fracassetti says.

Over the past  six years, UNDP in partnership with the National Crisis Management Center and the local authorities from 12 municipalities have been working together to establish a disaster management system in the country.

It all began after the 2004 floods and the 2007 forest fires affected nearly 50% of the population.

Funding for this Disaster Risk Reduction programme, worth over 600,000 USD was provided by the national Government and the Government of Japan.

The main objective was to support both central and local governments to become more resilient and provide effective and timely response to natural and man-made disasters.

UNDP and partners provided disaster preparedness training to the staff of the National Crisis Management System. They are now able to respond quickly and effectively.

They also helped produce crisis management handbooks and manuals, which are now used in each of the country's 84 municipalities.
 

The coordination among all responsible institutions has significantly improved. 

Today, in more than 380 elementary schools across the country, students are learning crisis management strategies from the first-ever national crisis management computer game, produced by the project, and already incorporated into the official school curricula.

Also, over 17,000 children and 1,500 teachers country wide have been through evacuation drills and know how to stay safe if there is an earthquake or a fire. With the project’s support, 12 municipalities have significantly increased their capacities for disaster planning. Vulnerability assessments have been carried out, along with hazard mapping, evacuation planning and training drills in high-risk communities, such as schools and kindergartens, but also local textile factories which have a higher number of women employees.

The risks from accidents have been reduced and the living conditions of the people have been improved.

“Today, a much greater number of municipalities want to be included in this successful programme. They are willing to co-finance disaster risk reduction activities to help ensure a safer future for all their citizens”, UNDP Project Manager Vasko Popovski says.

Just recently, the municipality of Makedonska Kamenica decided to invest in a new fire-fighting station, which, along with training and education, will help the community to successfully combat fires- a potentially serious problem given the high density of forests in the municipality’s territory.

The municipality contributed 70% of the 100,000 dollars-worth project while UNDP provided the remaining amount. It is expected that the full works will be completed by June this year, just before the beginning of summer.