Complete Awareness in Natural Disaster Overcoming and Recovery (CANDOR)

This volume presents Project CANDOR — Complete Awareness in Natural Disaster Overcoming and Response — which aims to establish strategies and doctrines for joint action between NATO and the Western Balkan Countries (WBC) in the field of natural disaster risk reduction. The initiative seeks to strengthen regional cooperation in risk prevention and response, ensuring the availability of national professional resources and regional capacities. It promotes disaster preparedness and fosters a culture of safety and resilience at all levels, in line with NATO and EU standards, as well as national and regional needs. Emergency preparedness and response in the WBC region is currently considered below EU and NATO standards. There is a clear need for improvement in areas such as incident command, interoperability, information sharing, and responses to emerging disaster scenarios driven by global changes. The training and doctrine objectives focus on encouraging the sharing, discussion, and adoption of research-based training, evaluation, and implementation. The ultimate goal is to enhance training quality, interoperability, and mutual support among WBC partners. Preliminary assessments reveal a shortage of knowledge and skills among staff working in Disaster Risk Management (DRM). However, the survey also shows that both young people and professionals in the WBC are eager to learn. Varying levels of expertise were observed, often shaped by education in other disciplines and informal, on-the-job learning. These existing competencies are insufficient to address the growing challenges in DRM, and a general lack of safety culture in society is evident. The proposed training approach introduces practical, hands-on scenarios designed to cultivate problem-solving skills and instinctive responses to evolving threats.