GENERAL OBJECTIVES
Considering the inestimable universal value of cultural heritage and the importance of its conservation and safeguard, PROMEDHE has two general objectives: firstly, contributing to the increase of dialogue and exchanges between Cyprus, Israel, Italy, Jordan, Palestine and other EU member states on disaster management, in order to reinforce collaboration among their national civil protection authorities; secondly, developing tools and assets to improve cultural heritage safeguard by creating national pools of experts able to work jointly at both national and regional level. PROMEDHE aims to reinforce capacities and procedures of national resources to optimize their response to natural disaster, paying particular attention to people’s safety, as well as to the landscape and the archaeological and cultural sites located in the region. The project’s objective is to create a cross border regional network of experts to cooperate and share experiences in the field of cultural heritage protection during disaster management. To do so, PROMEDHE looks for the creation of a fertile ground for the involved Civil Protection Authorities by promoting a common approach and methodology.
The objectives will be achieved thanks to the collaboration among the national civil protection authorities of Italy, as leader of the project, Cyprus, Israel, Jordan and Palestine. PROMEDHE also takes stock of the results achieved by previous similar projects, such as PATCH (“Guidelines protocols and procedures for the rescue of cultural heritage items during seismic events”).
The main field of competences covered by PROMEDHE are: disaster management governance, vulnerabilities, capacities and needs assessment, assessment and technique of cultural heritage safeguard in early response, assets development, capacity development and training methodologies.
SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES
The specific Objectives are:
- Identifying innovative tools (team concept) and procedures (materials, individuation and location technologies and techniques, packaging, removal and storage procedures, Standard Operating Procedures) to be used in order to improve preparedness measures and disaster management for rescuing cultural heritage, according to the experiences already developed in Italy, Cyprus and other countries that have already implemented relevant measures;
- increasing coordination and cooperation of all national stake-holders, i.e. Civil Protection Authorities, Ministry of Tourism and Cultural Heritage, Ministry of Interior, all line- Ministries, Firefighters, who are able to dialogue and work together in the interest of cultural heritage safeguard;
- creating an integrated system (networking) of civil protection and cultural heritage safeguard, to establish an interdisciplinary team made of operators with different specialized competences and skills, able to cooperate and intervene in case of disaster management, primarily on national, but also cross-border and regional, level;
- elaborating recommendations to bring civil protection authorities of Jordan, Israel and Palestine closer to the Union Civil Protection Mechanism tools and standards;
- create a formal and informal platform of civil protection authorities and experts.
