Regional policy or policies for municipalities can play a key role in enhancing civil preparedness. They are part of implementing efficient solutions for sustainable green transitions, as well as ensuring the provision of food, raw materials, energy, and access to services to citizens, both in stable times and during crises. This project explores how regional policy can best contribute to ensuring civil preparedness and resilience in the Nordic regions.
To achieve robust and resilient Nordic regions, structured collaboration between national authorities, regions, municipalities, businesses, and civil society is needed. Cooperation across local, regional – and sometimes also national – borders is essential to ensure security and good living conditions in Nordic cities, towns and sparsely populated rural areas. Analysing and understanding how Nordic countries address civil preparedness within subnational policies can also foster Nordic learning.
The project aims to investigate how Nordic regional policy can best contribute to ensuring civil preparedness and robustness in Nordic regions during crisis periods. It will focus especially on policies and good practices addressing food security, energy provision, raw materials, and access to public services.
As the regional policies and governance structures in the Nordic countries differ regarding roles and responsibilities, the study will also explore interactions between different governance levels and stakeholders in the managing crisis preparedness.
Structured around three key stages, the project will:
- Provide an overview of the extent to which state-level regional policy and/or policies for municipalities contribute to civil preparedness across the Nordic countries and regions.
- Analyse how selected Nordic regions and/or municipalities can strengthen civil preparedness through regional development policies, including an assessment of opportunities and challenges.
- Identify examples of innovative subnational civil preparedness policies and governance structures addressing food security, energy provision, raw materials, and access to public services.
- Highlight the lessons learnt from recent examples of subnational crisis responses across the Nordic countries to enhance future preparedness.
- Formulate recommendations on how state-level regional policy and/or policies for municipalities can facilitate and support regional civil preparedness and resilience, both within and between the Nordic countries and the autonomous territories.
The findings and insights from the project will be summarised in a policy brief and a collection of local and regional good practices to enhance civil preparedness and resilience across the Nordic regions.
