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In Italy, the incidence of calamitous natural disasters is very high, with a record of hundreds of thousands of casualties in the past century. The threat of natural hazards includes earthquakes, landslides, flooding, volcanoes, tsunamis, forest fires – is greater than anywhere else in Europe, and the country has had to learn how best to cope with and manage such challenges. Those lessons led to the creation of the Italian Civil Protection Department and its institutional mandate to manage national emergencies as central co-ordinator for national alerts and emergency response.
The International Futures Programme is embarking on a review of the system in order to assist Italy in evaluating its effectiveness – notably in terms of its ability to contend with future large-scale risks – and to offer guidance in making any needed improvements.
A notable feature of the risk management review is that it will cover a wide of the hazards mentioned above. The OECD Secretariat and the Italian Civil Protection authorities have developed a tool for the self-assessment review of existing policies and institutions that address these hazards. The tool will be put to use by a team of international experts brought together by the Secretariat. After discussing its results with risk management authorities at various levels of government, the expert team will deliver a report emphasising good practices and areas where improvement can be made, and make policy recommendations.
The review will also serve as a basis for Italy to exchange information, experience and best practice with other countries participating in the IFP Project on Risk Management Policies.
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