Day: February 28, 2023

Between 2^nd and 3^rd November our consortium, consisting of European University of Cyprus, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Cyprus, Civil Defense of Cyprus, Johanniter/Germany, Prepared International/Germany, Resilience Solutions International/Austria and D.M.A.T. Consulting KG/Austria conducted the Main Planning Conference for the PDEX JIP exercise in 2023

The three authorities – Jordan, Israel and Palestine (JIP) – which are part of the Professional Dialogue of UN OCHA, which was created in 2012, agreed on drafted “Guiding Principles for Standard Procedures in Disaster Situations”. These specific and historically important guidelines will now be tested in a Table Top exercise in January 2023 as well as a Full Scale Exercise of the European Union in March 2023.

The overall aim is to strengthen disaster preparedness in the JIP region, increase interoperability, enable Host Nation Support (HNS) and cooperation for international disaster response. This will be achieved by supporting the JIP region in analysing their Civil Protection situation, prepare a specific regional, cross border Standard Operating Procedures(SOP) for closer, more operational cooperation in case of a complex emergency, train all parties in HNS, test respective measures during an FSX and evaluate and analyse future steps and recommendations for implementation of the results into their national disaster response plans.

It will be the first time that all three authorities will cooperate in such a disaster management operation to test their possible cooperation.

On 9^th January 2023 a historical event happened – the conduct of a Table-Top Exercise (TTX) within an EU / Directorate General European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations (DG ECHO) funded project (PDEX – JIP) in Jordan Israel and Palestine.

The strategy of the project is to develop strengths to prepare for earthquakes in the Professional Dialogue region and enable humanitarian support between the parties, to create a more resilient society. The TTX demonstrated how a cooperation between the three authorities can work but also showed some challenges which will be overcome during the next month so that in the Full-Scale Exercise / FSX the guiding principles can be fully tested with teams on the ground from Jordan, Israel and Palestine as well as the European Union Mechanism, UN OCHA and other UN agencies on site.

The consortium – consisting of *European University of Cyprus – Centre-of-Excellence in Risk and Decision Sciences(Cerides), *Cyprus Civil Defense(Ministry of Interior), *Ministry of External Affairs of Cyprus, *Johanniter-Unfall-Hilfe e.V. with its Competence Center EU Civil Protection and Disaster Assistance and *Prepared International UG(PPI) from Germany, *Resilience Solutions International(RSI) and *D.M.A.T. Consulting KG (DMAT) from Austria, prepared and conducted this TTX on the 9^th of January 2023 as a preparation for the upcoming Full Scale Exercise (FSX) in March 2023 in the region.

In this TTX all three authorities were involved and simultaneously tested together these new procedures and their response in case of an earthquake.

The PDX-JIP project is based on the “Professional Dialogue for Jordan, Israel and Palestine which has been launched on 17th March 2013 by UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN OCHA) in which PDEX-JIP project partner PPI and DMAT  have contributed to this disaster diplomacy process.

Within the PDEX-JIP Professional Dialog Exercise – Jordan, Israel and Palestine (PDEX-JIP), for the first-time guiding principles for Standard Procedures in disaster situations in Jordan Israel and Palestine were developed together with UN OCHA, DG ECHO and the consortium.