Risk management: public and commercial sector
In order to promote public-private partnership Risk Reduction Foundation in cooperation with the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe held an international forum in the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine on topic «Public-Private Partnership in the Sphere of Risk Reduction — the Basis for the Country’s Competitiveness in the XXI Century».
On 19 September 2011, in the Parliament of Ukraine, an international forum was organized by the Risk Reduction Foundation and the Subcommittee on Sustainable Development of the Committee on the Environment, Agriculture, Local and Regional Authorities of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. Forum «Public-Private Partnership in the Sphere of Risk Reduction — the Basis for the Country’s Competitiveness in the XXI Century» was designated as the start of a large-scale campaign to promote the theme of risk reduction at the global, national and local level.
The speaker of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine Volodymyr Lytvyn focused attention on the importance of the theme forum: «The proposed risk-reduction issue is extremely important from the standpoint that we live in a world of risks and threats which we have created, and now are facing a challenge of overcoming them. The world is becoming more globalized and interdependent, and there is no area of human life that would not carry the risks and potential dangers. It regard to policies, economy, industry, information and social spheres." To the opinion of Lytvyn, challenges faced by the European Community also concern Ukraine.
Addressing a welcoming speech to those present, PACE President Mevlut Cavusoglu said that every day from different parts of the Earth, we receive the warning signs of disasters, accidents, emergency events, which kill hundreds of thousands of people. «At the beginning of the third millennium politicians are responsible for the atmosphere in which people will live during the next decades and centuries. Will we be able to save civilization, and to overcome the difficulties related to the errors of past periods of mankind».
Subject of risk reduction in the field of ecology, economy and social sphere in public policy has great potential and can contribute to systematic problem solving, — says the head of the PACE.
According to the head of Risk Reduction Foundation Vladimir Kosterin, the number and scale of natural and man-made disasters in the last decade have contributed to a situation in which the quality and length of life of a person in a particular country depends on the effectiveness of risk reduction in other countries.
«In the XXI century, risks in some countries are affecting the socio-economic and political situation in other contries, a new principle of international policy — the competition of countries in risk reduction," — said Vladimir Kosterin.
During the discussion, the experts raised questions related to different types of risks (natural and technological, demographic, financial, etc.), ways of reducing them through institutional reforms and national strategies, which will take into account solution of global problems — climate change, water pollution resources, land depletion, loss of biological diversity, the spread of epidemics.
An effective mechanism for performing preventive function is environmental insurance, which is practiced in the leading countries. This mechanism is not fully used in Ukraine, because of the existing legal gaps and the lack of state support for this direction of the insurance, said representatives of insurance companies.
In turn, deputies members of PACE proposed to establish communication with the local authorities, as they are in close proximity to all the problems. The format of public-private partnerships can allow to budge the problems that were not solved for the years, in order to carry out ecologization of the country in the next decade.
After having discussed plans for further joint actions, participants of the forum, agreed to cooperate on the development of draft legal acts with the experience of the EU and to promote the theme of risk ratings of the country, region, city to improve the efficiency of authority.
