UCPM Technical Assistance Financing Facility (TAFF) for Disaster Prevention and Preparedness

Extreme weather events, overwhelming national response services, are becoming an annual occurrence in Europe. The continent is becoming increasingly vulnerable to a wide range of hazards, including earthquakes, floods, landslides, wildfires, heatwaves, and other extreme weather events. Between 1980 and 2020, natural disasters affected nearly 50 million people in the European Union (EU), and caused on average an economic loss of €12 billion per year.  Exacerbated by climate change, these events are increasing in number and becoming more intense and frequent, causing significant impacts on the economies in the region, on the physical infrastructure, but more importantly on people.  Without climate adaptation interventions, more than 400,000 jobs could be lost annually by 2050, with the overall cost of climate-related extreme weather reaching €170 billion by the end of the century.

Strengthening financial resilience, making smart investments for disaster and climate resilience, and enhancing institutional capacity and preparedness makes economic sense. To be better prepared for disasters, there is a need to scale up investments in enhanced disaster prevention and preparedness in the region. 

The Technical Assistance Financing Facility for Disaster Prevention and Preparedness (TAFF) is a partnership between the European Commission through its Directorate-General for Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations (DG ECHO), the World Bank and the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR). 

Its overall objective is to strengthen the knowledge and capacities of countries under the Union Civil Protection Mechanism (UCPM) for disaster and preparedness with a focus on:

1. Strengthening the capacity of civil protection and other relevant competent authorities in scaling up disaster and climate resilience in line with the Union Disaster Resilience Goals and the European Green Deal, as well as the countries’ national priorities.
2. Supporting investments in disaster prevention and preparedness through the development of a project pipeline and enhanced administrative capacity.
3. Improving the knowledge base on disaster risk management, and facilitate the sharing of knowledge, good practices and information. 

The TAFF is a mechanism which allows national civil protection and disaster risk management authorities to access technical assistance and global knowledge on prevention and preparedness to support country efforts on disaster risk management (DRM).  The TAFF is aligned with: 

• The European Union Disaster Resilience Goals, which focus on enhancing UCPM response capacity, strengthening crisis and emergency preparedness of civil protection, improved risk analytics, anticipation and planning, enhanced early warning systems, and increased risk awareness of the population.
• The World Bank’s strategy in the Europe and Central Asia (ECA) region, which focuses on supporting a green transition, building resilience, and strengthening institutions.
• The GFDRR mission to support communities and countries to reduce risk, prepare for, and recover from disaster by integrating DRM and climate change adaptation into development strategies and programs, and contributing to country efforts in the implementation of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030.

TAFF has two components: 

1. Country-specific technical assistance to strengthen the capacity of civil protection and other relevant competent authorities under the UCPM in scaling up investments contributing to disaster and climate resilience. Technical assistance includes various types of analytics, technical studies and recommendations for plans and strategies, piloting of activities, and capacity-building/training activities. Key areas of support include:

• anticipate - improving anticipation and disaster risk management planning to proactively address potential hazards;
• prepare - raising risk awareness and preparedness levels among the population to effectively respond to emergencies;
• alert - enhancing early warning and hydro-meteorological systems for timely and accurate information dissemination; and
• secure - strengthening national civil protection systems to strengthen to prevent and prepare for disasters. 

2. Knowledge and capacity building to facilitate the transfer and sharing of knowledge among countries on disaster risk management and facilitate the sharing of good practices across UCPM countries. Knowledge products and activities include for example studies, collection of best practices and lessons learned, practical guidance/knowledge notes, interactive workshops and technical deep dives/clinics, and training programs.