On June 26 this year, representatives of the Norwegian government and local authorities, as well as representatives of Polish cities and experts, took part in the Local Development Forum seminar entitled 'The Role of Cities in the Defense and Protection of Residents - Norwegian Experience and Projected Solutions in Poland'.

The role of cities in the defence and protection of their inhabitants is fundamental in today's world, where new threats emerge and the previously existing dangers often take forms that are far more difficult to control and prevent. This forces cities to look for new ways and methods to ensure the protection of residents and secure the continuity of key public services during times of peace, as well as in times of political and even armed conflict.

In Poland, the Civil Protection and Civil Defense Act is currently being legislated. As we read on the website of the Prime Minister's Office, the primary goal of the Act is to meet the public demand for a safe and resilient civil environment in the context of military threats, particularly those posed by Russia.

The draft Civil Protection and Civil Defense Act structures the civil protection system in the Republic of Poland. It defines the tasks of civil protection in times of peace and war, the bodies and entities carrying out the tasks of civil protection, the principles behind the planning for civil protection and civil defense and the operation of the system of threat detection, warning, notification and alarming about threats, the principles of use and registration of collective protection facilities, the operation and organization of civil defense and the procedure for the appointment of civil defense personnel and, finally, civil protection and civil defense funding. The design of the civil protection system was based on existing structures to optimally utilize existing resources, including, in particular, the potential of the State Fire Service, volunteer fire brigades, emergency management structures, public safety answering system, State Medical Rescue, medical entities and non-governmental organizations.

‘Cities are just in the process of consultations on the draft of the Act, which largely deals with decentralized structures of the state - both municipalities and districts’, said Andrzej Porawski, Head of the Office of the Association of Polish Cities. And he pointed out one of the comments that cities have been emphasizing for some time, which concerns taking inadequate consideration of the population’s participation in the bill. ‘Such a system of public protection without the participation of the population has not yet worked anywhere, and in countries that we consider exemplary, including Scandinavia, for instance, the participation of the population is the main glue that makes these systems work,’ he emphasized.

‘The main pressure to prepare an adequate system for civil protection has been coming from the grassroot level, and now the topic has been taken up by the government. We are participating in the consultation process, and we also want to participate in the construction of this system, which awaits us almost immediately, especially in view of the current international situation,’ said A. Porawski.

During the seminar, the Norwegian 'Total Defense' concept of civil protection was presented. It is based on the sum of Norwegian civilian and military resources working together to prevent and manage crises or armed conflicts. All working together, they do their part and take all necessary actions.

The most important, primary target group of the system's activities is the community.

‘Everything we do, every task, always fits into the overarching goal, which is public security. The society is to enjoy high standards of living in our free and democratic society,’ stressed Jan Greve, representing the Norwegian Directorate for Civil Protection, an agency of the Ministry of Justice and Public Security, during the seminar with the Polish local government officials.

Seminar participants learned about the experiences of Gdansk and Bydgoszcz in the area of crisis management and resilience building.

Jan Jakub Wygnański, expert, President of the Shipyard Foundation, spoke about the present difficulty in involving residents in activities to build the cities' resilience to crisis situations. ‘We demilitarized ourselves a long time ago,’ he said, providing the perspective of the generation who 30 years ago believed that history was over, decided that they no longer needed to prepare for anything. His long experience of working for civil society would suggest that our society, with its diversity and the wisdom that comes from it, is the source of resilience that we need today. Few societies have such a long and rich history of self-organization as the Poles. We have always organized ourselves somehow, for instance in the face of the 1997 Millennium Flood. And at the same time, it is important to remember that our country has 160,000 civic organizations, each of which can prove useful and add their own software to building security and confronting crises.

‘The Nordic examples and how citizens there act are a great inspiration for us. However, for us the adjective 'total' refers to war, not defense. Reversing this in our collective mentality will require doing a great deal of work that cannot be replaced by an act,’ the expert said.

The current cycle of the LDF is carried out within the framework of the project to continue bilateral cooperation between Polish, Norwegian and Icelandic local governments as an example of developing lasting relations after local development projects and expanding cooperation in preparation for the next perspective. The 'Bilateral Initiative 2024-2025' project is implemented with funds from the Bilateral Cooperation Fund, the European Economic Area Financial Mechanism and the Norwegian Financial Mechanism 2014-2021.