Empower-Citizens is a European project designed to actively involve citizens in emergency management. Through the development of a structured procedure, citizens’ input is integrated into Civil Protection Plans, making them more efficient and effective.
Learning from emergencies
On 24 August 2016, central Italy was struck by a magnitude 6.0 earthquake that hit the regions of Abruzzo, Lazio, Marche, and Umbria. Among the affected municipalities was Castelraimondo (Macerata), which suffered extensive structural damage and saw more than a thousand people displaced. It was a traumatic experience, and an important one when viewed from the perspective of emergency preparedness. What happened, including the mistakes made, can serve as a lesson for the future – and the first voices that need to be heard are those of the citizens themselves.
Castelraimondo is now one of the partners of the Empower-Citizens project, which was created to involve citizens in a structured way in emergency management. The project systematically collects and organises experiences, observations, and proposals for improvements, making them available to those working on the ground: local authorities and civil protection services.
“The idea behind the project stems from the fact that citizens are often the first to arrive at the scene of an emergency,” explains Sonia Matera, consultant at Deep Blue and expert in Disaster Risk Management and Climate Resilience.
“They have firsthand knowledge of the area and its vulnerabilities, and their observations can be crucial for the authorities. However, post-event analysis and reflection phases still predominantly involve institutions and organisations. Citizens, despite playing a key role, are often not systematically included in information-sharing processes,” she continues.
“There are numerous cases in which citizens have played a central role during emergencies, saving lives and helping the most vulnerable thanks to their knowledge of local areas and communities,” adds Erica Vannucci, consultant at Deep Blue, and expert in Human-Centred Design and Human Factors. “Authorities and civil protection services could greatly benefit from this participatory contribution, making operations more efficient and effective.”
There is an ever-growing need to organise and systematise citizen engagement, including at the institutional level. It is in this context that the CLIPP (Citizen & Authority Learning and Improving Preparedness Plans) procedure was developed within the project.
CLIPP: the operational procedure for Emergency Management
CLIPP is divided into five steps:
- Understanding the local context: Identification of local actors to be involved (general practitioners or individuals with a key role in the community), and analysis of risks and the social, geographical, and political context;
- Fostering dialogue with citizens: Collecting feedback through public events or participation in existing initiatives;
- Organising information: Classification and analysis of the information collected to identify recurring themes or divergent viewpoints;
- Revising preparedness plans: Review of a Civil Protection Plan using citizen input to update alert systems, evacuation procedures, and other key elements;
- Sharing lessons learnt with citizens: Providing citizens with feedback from the authorities on their contributions – how they were used, what was implemented, what was not, and the reasons behind these decisions.
“This procedure is designed to facilitate the work of authorities and civil protection services,” Matera explains. “It does not require the invention of new tools, but rather the application of five well-structured steps, supported by examples, suggestions, and practical materials.”
Deep Blue, the project coordinator, will soon publish an initial version of the guidelines. “There will be the first testing phase of the procedure between March and September,” Vannucci continues. “The goal is to publish the final version at the end of the project, in January 2027, and make it available to all interested authorities.” Empower-Citizens is not just a theoretical project: the procedure will be tested in two concrete case studies, the municipality of Castelraimondo in Italy and the county of Innlandet in central Norway, which was hit by Storm Hans in 2023.
An innovative and scalable approach
By focusing on the active involvement of citizens in emergency preparedness and management, the Empower-Citizens project fits perfectly within the framework of participatory democracy. Although the case studies are specific to two local contexts, the process is designed to be scalable: from small municipalities to large cities, potentially starting with individual neighbourhoods, and up to regional and national levels. The approach is targeted, centred around the main risks that need to be prevented and managed.
The composition of the consortium reflects this multilevel vision. “To be approved, the project required the support of the civil protection agencies of three countries: Italy, Norway, and Romania,” Matera explains. “In particular, the Romanian Ministry of Internal Affairs, which represents civil protection at the national level, will be responsible for supporting the dissemination and nationwide adaptation of the procedure.”
The Empower-Citizens project in the European context
This is not the first time that Deep Blue is participating in a project dedicated to emergency prevention and management. The organisation has done so (and continues to do so) through initiatives such as ENGAGE, SYNERGIES, and RESILIAGE. However, this project falls within a European framework that differs from the usual funding programmes. It distinguishes itself through a highly operational approach. Unsurprisingly, its duration is shorter than that of similar projects.
“Empower-Citizens is part of the European Union’s Preparedness Strategy, which aims to strengthen emergency preparedness through the coordinated involvement of citizens and authorities,” concludes Vannucci. “In particular, it is linked to the concept of the Whole of Society, according to which emergency management is not the exclusive responsibility of institutions, but of society as a whole.”
