Research Report Armenia

Armenia A model for establishing and building a functioning voluntary system in support of Civil Protection

1. Introduction and methodology

The overall approach is that the Volunteer system is established or developed both as well-organised stand-alone system, and integral part of a country’s Emergency Response/Civil Protection system. Several preconditions and prerequisites must be in place, discussed and agreed among the key stakeholders, and that include political support and financial assistance in maintaining the capacity, covering the operational costs and investing in preparedness and development of the capacity. In one or another way the resources need to be established and trained; operational procedures developed; equipment and material/technical support established and maintained; and this all needs to be supported financially and politically.

Considering the Voluntary system is part of the country’s capacity, then this Voluntary system can be addressed as a part of Capacity Building System. This helps us to bring the different elements together in a bigger picture, addressing relevant elements of our study. The method has been previously applied in Civil Protection settings and proves to be useful. The MODEL is based on a General System Model (see below) and the capacity development is considered as an organized added value requiring human and financial resources. The functioning or business processes are the driving forces of any enterprise, organization and institutions. And this is suitable way of organizing our approach to capture the overall picture, to address specific issues and create a sound data base for further work of the project partners.

The information below is gathered by the project partners and was addressed to different administrative level representatives, in respective country. It also includes findings from different projects already undergone and contains summaries and extracts from the National Workshops, organized as standalone event in the StrengthVol project. The outputs have been organized in a systematic way, and thus enlarged the scope of the questions asked. Variety of answers will provide more opportunities for development of the capacity; will make it more robust and flexible. It is anticipated that the questions should raise more questions when the interviews were conducted, therefore the questions were addressed to the extent possible, used with caution with relevant levels, but the answers on most of them should be sought. The questions were asked to National/Regional/Local authorities, representatives of NGOs and relevant persons within the CP, RC or volunteer domain. It is suggested that the Capacity built, is viewed from all 4 elements of the Emergency Management – Prevention, Preparedness, Response and Recovery (herein and after PPRR).

Mets Parni and Garni communities, targeted within the project, has optimal conditions for agriculture, and therefore large percent of population work in this area. The other part moves to capital an stays there, to get education and job. Number of Youth: Garni around 1000 and in Mets Parni around 240.

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The safety of the communities is main motivation for youth. The young people expressed their readiness and willingness on volunteer works for their communities. They are ready to invest their time and gain new knowledge and skills. Which can help them to serve for safety of their community.

It has been emphasised that population in Garni doesn’t have any experience and knowledge in volunteerism.

The General Business System model proposed within the context of modelling a Capacity Building system is based upon the “BCIOD+R” framework developed at Bristol University (UK). In this framework, the top process of the Capacity Building process model is broken down into six necessary and sufficient subsidiary processes, which addresses the areas of Business (B), Customer (C), Integration (I), Operation (O), Delivery (D) and Regulation (R) (1):

 “B” helps thinking about business processes including finance; Business processes are those of creating and maintaining the business case including all financial aspects. Whilst these processes may be owned and driven by financial specialists it is important that all members of the team understand the business case and contribute to its development and execution.

 “C” helps focusing on customer processes and includes all stakeholders; Who are you serving and which value are you adding to the client

 “I” helps thinking about how processes are integrated and includes human resources; This is necessary for assuring team building within all of the persons involved in the Capacity Building activities and within all the different areas. It addresses also the means required for the proper functioning. It concerns team commitment and morale, cross discipline exchange and sharing so that the players understand their part in the whole exercise.

 “O” is about the ‘usual’ way of conceiving an operational process which is what we do; Most of the issues addressed in this process are of technical nature and are linked with supporting and assisting the country in key technical areas to strengthen its capacity/systems.

 “R” helps focusing on regulatory (and legislative) processes. This process is necessary for addressing all of the key legal and regulatory issues, including (international) law, necessary for justifying and supporting Capacity Building.

The process approach can successively offer the possibility to (identify and) attach performance indicators to the different processes composing the model and which indicators can be used by any volunteer system to monitor the progress of its capacity building program, step in to address deviations timely and measure the degree of successfully reached objectives.

The project scope for Armenia are Armenian Red Cross Society and Ministry of Emergency Situations with participation of representatives from Garni and Mets-Parni communities.

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2. Lessons Identified and recommendations from previous activities/projects:

The lessons identified and respective recommendations for follow-up initiatives are compiled from 2 projects, that were implemented both in Armenia and Georgia:

1. Building Safe and Resilient Communities (BSRC), phases I and II, 2012-2018 2. Improved Emergency Preparedness and Coordinated Response in South Caucasus (EmPrep), 2016-2017

. Find systematic ways of strengthening capacities through volunteer engagement The operational capacities of ARCS are present, yet a challenge exists on systematic utilization of these capacities in the broader national disaster management context (prevention, preparedness and response).

. Initiate and set up systems for competitions between CVGs/branches and consider other incentives to further motivate engagement of volunteers. Volunteering should be fun and rewarding, and a strong sense of team spirit can be a powerful motivator.

. ARCS: Explore and advocate for emergency service decentralisation through a mixed system (staff/volunteers). Armenia has seen major improvements in the way it deals with disasters, and the government has endorsed and supported a shift from reactive to proactive disaster risk management.

. Empower volunteers to develop and organize their own training, simulation and operational activities The felt lack of practical trainings flagged by volunteers can only be addressed sustainably in the long run through volunteer self-initiative. They need to be aware of and accepting this and be supported to escape the dependency of project-based activities.

. Provide volunteers / staff with a briefing on risk awareness and safe behaviour as part of their training. In view of RC’s legal and ethical responsibility on the volunteers’ and staff wellbeing (‘duty of care’) while engaging into emergency response, the RC shall put a focus on ensuring a safe working environment for volunteers/staff, explaining roles and functions, and continuous information on the operational environment.

3. Lessons and identified challenges within Armenian Civil protection and DRM field:

 Incomplete legal regulations on volunteer activities and volunteer work in establishing process of rescue basis in remote areas. Clarity and regulation of the functions, roles, responsibilities, competencies of the governing bodies, organizations, civil society, volunteers, private sector and scientific institutions operating in the field of disaster risk reduction are paramount;

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 Lack of guarantees for the protection of the health and safety of the volunteers during their voluntary work, in cases defined by law, for the compensation of the damages suffered by the volunteers, as well as for the possible risks related to the volunteer work;  Lack of incentive mechanisms for involving a wider range of civil society in volunteering;  Lack of complete legal regulations on organizing voluntary work in foreign countries, as well as stateless persons, citizens of foreign countries in the Republic of Armenia;  The need to provide legal, social, as well as other guarantees related to volunteer work (It is important for us that volunteers are provided with the professional trainings to be trained).  Continue to closely cooperate with relevant state and non-state stakeholders to integrate Volunteers into CP systems, as well as to ensure their maintenance;  Ensure joint simulation exercises with rescue services at regional and national levels;  Continue broader approach for volunteer engagement, considering not only disaster response, but preparedness and prevention as well.

The following should be improved:  Community volunteering groups (CVGs) should only be established when pre-conditions for having agreements are in place to sustain them and integrate them in existing planning processes;  More focus should be given to motivation mechanisms of volunteers to keep them active during peaceful time as well;  Effective reporting system should be established for volunteer groups, in order to monitor and evaluate their operations and effectiveness.  Develop new management mechanisms to increase the efficiency of the use of multiple, multi-layered and diverse resources to reduce disaster risk.  Establishment of fire-rescue bases in remote communities, furnishing with equipment, supplies and rescue equipment.  Increase the professional knowledge and skills of the volunteers of the fire-rescue bases.  Carry out regular activities aimed to develop culture of security, ensuring the continuous trainings of all segments of the population.  To develop and implement on-going programs directed to capacity development in communities.  To plan and consistently implement activities aimed to increase the reliability of living facilities and networks.

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 To ensure the awareness and preparedness of the governing bodies and the population, to involve non-governmental organizations and the population in the field of emergency management.

4. Lessons learnt and recommendations from BSRC I/II (2012-2018) and EmPrep (2016-2017)

Austrian RC has been involved into cooperation with Armenian partners since 2012. The experience gained from projects is valuable and could be taken into consideration in implementation.

Lessons learnt:

 Explore emergency service decentralization through mixed system with staff and volunteers (To look for establishing mixed system with staff and volunteers)

 Invest in frameworks (with governmental agencies) for: . increased utilization of volunteer teams; . using capacities in preparedness and response (many teams were trained but not used very frequently)

 Ensure alert plans for emergency activation are in place for volunteer groups (so they could be quickly be put into action when needed).

Recommendations:

 Empower volunteers to develop and organize their own training, simulation and operational response activities

 self-sufficiency of volunteer teams (don’t always rely on authorities and bodies, that they feel that their responsibility in a way of that they feel that they need to organize their activities)

 Provide volunteers/staff with a briefing on safety and security aspects as part of their standard training and do not expose team members to risks (based on observation of trainings, opened and not aware of potential safety risks)

 Provide uniforms/PPE at an early stage as incentive and sign of RC-integration (they need to be trained to always wear PPE when they are active, to make sure that the PPE will be handed over to the volunteers when starting the training)

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Regional authorities from target regions also schools staff including (Headmaster, teachers, military teacher, pupils, etc.) have been a valuable resource for the research:

Question Answer 1. What type of Target regions answers: emergencies is the  Garni – Garni is a major village located on low land valley. The main region emergencies in region are fires and winds. Main hazards threatening the village area are earthquake, house fires, strong vulnerable? winds, hailstorms. Please describe Around 15-20 cases of house fires are registered every year, the the recent head of community mentioned several cases of strong winds in emergencies Garni that caused house damages. One of the notable emergencies during last 2 years in the village are hailstorms, which affecting livelihoods. It is worth and its impact. to mention that Garni area is nestled on a dangerous tectonic fault, which is a high risk for the Capital as well. • Mets Parni- In 2018 ARCS has initiated VCA in the community, the information has been checked with the head of community which as follows. Hailstorms are frequent events in Mets Parni which are happening 4-5 times per year from which 1-2 times are having damaging consequences. Strong winds are the next dangerous events for the town, damaging particularly houses. Mudflows and flash floods are considered as a threat as well, as heavy precipitations are usual for the community. As Mets Parni has dry climate, it becoming a pre-condition for frequent land fires during summer. More over both communities are located on main roadway with loaded traffic, thus road accidents are also frequent for both areas. 2. What kind of • Garni village is lacking response resources. In case of emergency situation, response the response comes from Abovyan town rescue service which takes resources does approximately 1 hour drive, due to bad road conditions. • In previous projects implemented by ARCS, community voluntary the region have? team consisting 20 members has been established and equipped to organise first response to emergency situations. Though there was lack of refresher trainings during 2019 because the end of the project. In addition, response comes from Spitak region which is 15 km away from Mets Parni and in hard cases from Vanadzor rescue service which is located in 30 km from town. 3. Distance from Garni region doesn’t have rescue service stations or any other response teams regional centre nearby, the only response comes from Abovyan city which is located in 20 km and distance from from the community, and it takes approximately 40 minutes to get to village from rescue unit. rescue unit to the Mets Parni is located on highway of Gyumri (Shirak region) and Vanadzor. remote Rescue units focused in Shirak (which is 15 km far from Mets Parni) and communities. Vanadzor (30 km in hard cases)

How is During the interview with regional authorities in both regions, it volunteerism in becomes clear that they both consider the volunteerism as an important emergencies component in community’s life. Rescue service units in most cases far from rural areas, and due to bad conditions have difficult access in case perceived by the of emergencies.

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communities and Mets Parni has experience in volunteer teams, particularly community the authorities? volunteer group established by ARCS within the framework of previously implemented “Building Save and Resilient Communities” project.

What Regional authorities considered volunteerism very important part in contribution are emergency situation thus they are ready to provide necessary premises and they ready to do logistic contribution for volunteers. The authorities of Garni and Mets Parni showed their preparedness for supporting. in the process of • Allocate place for trainings etc. developing • Logistic support. volunteer system? • Human resources.

Issue with location and resources reaching the town. Equipment and training needed. Properly trained and equipped volunteers as a solution perceived.

Questions for regional rescue services

Nr Question Answer 1. Main issues for In all cases the representatives of rescue services from both regions gave regional rescue the similar answers. services. • Roads are in insufficient conditions in rural regions, so it takes much time to reach emergency area. • In some cases the distance of rescue centres are located far from rural communities thus it takes much time to get there. 2. Assistance, Garni - local population. from where you Lori region’s rescue service, also Lori region has 8 CVG-s teams (community get support volunteer group) when needed?

3. How the At first phase in volunteer groups starting to accesses in emergency volunteerism situation identifying injured people and provision first AID. can contribute to the civil protection?

4. How important Authorities of both regions answered same that volunteerism in do you think is emergency situation is very important. Volunteerism movement is the idea of one of the crucial components in strategy of MES (Ministry of emergency situation) more than 10 years and rescue service has involving the experience. volunteers in • Fast response. Volunteers are always near of emergency the emergency case. response • Knowledge and skills which contribute for decrease of death activities? cases.

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5. Do you have There are capacities on providing mainly fire fighting and basic rescue capacity to trainings. The Crisis Management State Academy under MES will provide organize necessary technical resources. ARCS can contribute with providing trainings on First Aid, PFA, humanitarian response, DRM, etc. emergency

response trainings for the volunteers?

5. BUSINESS MODEL CATEGORIES

B – Business: Having the necessary resources

“B” helps thinking about business processes including finance. Business processes are those of creating and maintaining the business case including all financial aspects. Whilst these processes may be owned and driven by financial specialists it is important that all members of the team understand the business case and contribute to its development and execution. An appropriate approach was identified at separate levels:

1. National (one of prerequisite is that the Law on Voluntarism, which they do not have in place, is necessary in order to guarantee the protection in terms of legislation); 2. Local (the roles of local level authority which is municipality based should be clearly identified in terms of voluntarism and in terms of influencing on motivational part of engagement people to voluntary work).

There should be motivation in terms of the capacity building of the volunteers and active role of different organizations: governmental organizations (particularly Ministry of Emergency Situation of Armenia – MES and the Crises Management State Academy), NGOs (Red Cross and others), research and educational organizations.

At the local level where the local community benefits could be implemented like active volunteers can get part relief from some percentage of the taxes and this should be decided by the municipality, be the Council, and the recommendations could be provided to them.

An access to the facilities, additional opportunities to the volunteers and any other benefits would be in favor for Armenia.

In Civil protection system of Armenia, the main actor is Government and Armenia is trying to develop the model where the voluntarism will be integrated into the Civil Protection but still the time is needed and additional experience, revision of the approaches and methodologies. An exact time for having this integration in place is still not known. As for today 80% of resources is governmental and 20% - voluntary. The aim is to reach a balance - 50% x 50%.

Some incentives are possible now but the full salary for the volunteers can’t be paid because when they are paid, they are not vol. anymore.

CP system in Armenia includes DRR National Platform (with all national stakeholders and donors if they are involved into the process).

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Sources of funding - The agreement between the community and MES was signed before starting the establishing the base with clear roles and responsivities of each parties and it was included that the additional support from international organizations and donors could be provided.

All the communities have their Annual Disaster Preparedness Plans which is integrated into the Community Development Plan and in implementation of the activities which are included into the Plan the spontaneous volunteers could play certain role (from the mobilization to preparedness activities).

Spontaneous volunteers could be used as additional supporting service. Normally for the immediate response in Armenian CP system it is not encouraged to use spontaneous volunteers.

When there is a disaster there are two types of borders (one is on the ground and where the rescue services are working and another one is larger and the Operational HQ is located there). Spontaneous volunteers should come to the Operational HQ and offer their assistance. Such practice and culture are not common for Armenia system and still it is needed to be developed.

It is also important that the people need to be aware in case if they want to offer their assistance whom to approach, where to go and how to present themselves.

Gaps concluded by the Armenian authorities

1. Funding. The unit which is going to be established within the framework of the project StregthVol will be serving not only for the villages where it will be located but also for the others villages which are located in different administration areas. There is the tendency that the communities could be enlarged but as it is now every village is administratively subordinated by separate bodies with their own budgets. Currently the existing communities are not ready to provide financial resources to other villages surrounding the communities and which will be served by the unit. Financial support is crucial. 2. Recruitment. Possible rotation could be an issue and institutionalization is needed. 3. Availability of volunteers. In response case it will be less an issue but when we are talking about preparedness and prevention then availability of volunteers will be an issue because of they will be more concentrated in the income generating activities.

C – Customer processes

 “C” helps focusing on customer processes and includes all stakeholders; Who are you serving and which value are you adding to the client Volunteerism movement is one of the crucial components in strategy of MES (Ministry of Emergency Situations). Volunteer groups are very helpful and crucial in accesses in emergency situation identifying injured people and provision first AID.

Fast response can be ensured as volunteers are always near of emergency case.

Knowledge and skills that contribute for decrease of death cases. Regional authorities consider volunteerism very important part in emergency situation thus they are ready to provide necessary premises and logistic contribution for volunteers. The authorities of Garni and Mets Parni show their preparedness for supporting the project.

It is also important that the people need to be aware in case if they want to offer their assistance whom to approach, where to go and how to present themselves.

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I – Integration: Integrating people and processes

Nr Question Answer 1. Is the population In general, yes. motivated to In rural regions population don’t need specific motivation to be volunteer? volunteer. The safety of their village is the biggest motivation for them. Local population contribute to emergency situation as possible.

2. What are the This question was given not only to individuals but also regional pre-conditions authorities and in every case, answers were the same: to have prepared for establishing and functional teams of volunteers they should have good leader who prepared and could disseminate information and to lead. Also trainings to get functional teams experience, equipment and motivation. of volunteers? 3. What are the + people feel responsible for their own community. main dis/advantages of volunteerism?

In Lori region there are people who have experience, as these people provide trainings by RC from previous projects. It is mainly connected to providing first aid, cleaning the roads in winter and similar small scale activities.

When there will be legal basis and the regulations concerning to the volunteers, they will have there some points concerning to the motivation, their activities, how can the authority help and support them, and how they could work with private sector, how to coordinate their activities.

Different mechanism will be established regarding the employers by this Law. In Armenia it is hardly to be the case that the Government will reimburse to the employers the amount of money spent for volunteers involvement but the different mechanism on taxation (profit taxes, duty payments etc.) could be applicable, which can be provided to those employers and they could provide it to encourage their staff.

It is also recommended to start to inform about volunteers from the schools, to teach children who are volunteers

O – Operational process

Alarm/communication systems are working in Armenia. There is Crisis Management Call Centres in each region of Armenia (num. 911). First alarming information is received there, then a despatcher registers the call, identifies the geographical location and involves the particular district level authorities to respond. By the Law on Civil Protection and the Decree of the Government on Crisis

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Centres they are serving 24/7 and every day they are providing the report on any event and the calls registers which then to be registered into the database.

In future such an alarm system could be applicable to volunteers (the Head of the community could inform the team leader of the volunteers and then they could promptly be mobilised and then respond).

Practice shows that in the communities especially in the remote communities the volunteers and active people of the community are the quickest to be mobilized. Until the assistance from the centers come, they are already working. These people need to be led by the community leader.

In the future there will be more stations and such station will serve countrywide. It is very preferable that all volunteers’ forces in all places will have unified and standardized uniform. The issue - finances. At those places which are not supported by such projects, the communities will be responsible for supporting this process and they may decide to provide cheaper uniforms. MES would recommend to standardize the uniforms and PPE, but the quality will depend on the financial situation in the communities.

There is the Regulation from MES and curriculum with the agenda of the training to be trained as rescuers. It includes firefighting, search and rescue, operations with different equipment, first aid training, etc. The standards are in place and that includes also the testing and certification.

There is a will to provide such trainings in the communities.

First aid training is also could be provided additionally by ArmRC, as well as psychological first aid, humanitarian assistance, assessment trainings.

It is proposed to include DRR subject to the curriculum.

There are approved Disaster Preparedness Plans and there are activities highlighted in the plans according to the priorities corresponded to the needs of the communities or provinces. When volunteers are recruited and teams are already formed it will be beneficial to share those plans with the volunteers identifying the areas where they can be involved and when implementing the activities for raising the awareness, arranging informative events for the schools, organizing small scale SimExs for children etc. and this is where volunteers could be involved. The volunteers could also help with insuring that the plans and the standards are not remain on paper and are implemented in the reality.

D – Delivering

 “D” helps looking at the processes that helps delivering the others and includes maintenance; This process is necessary for maintaining that all the means are put in place to keep the Capacity Building activities ongoing. There might be some difficulties concerning sustainability of the ongoing process of serving of this volunteer’s basis. It has been discussion point to have an agreement between MES, communities and volunteers. This could help to set concrete responsibilities of all partners; financial aspects will be included too.

Regarding the trainings, there are annual plans - on regular basis they are organizing trainings and simulations exercises and invite volunteers to participate.

The quality is being controlled. There is a working group established by MES with the involvement of representatives of other Ministries, international organizations, donors. They are providing quality

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qualifications not only for the rescuers but for the citizens. It includes the physical exams and theory knowing. After meeting these certain criteria, the person could be allowed to become a volunteer.

Every 3 years they are going through requalification. The same mechanism is working for professional rescuers and for the volunteers. MES is responsible for monitoring.

R – Regulatory processes

Current overview of the legal documents on the subject in Armenia.

1. The RA Law on Rescue Forces and Rescuer Status, adopted on May 25, 2004

2. The RA Law on Public Organizations, adopted on December 16, 2016

3. Concept for the development of a public, volunteer movement to provide assistance and formation in the RA region, protocol decision of the RA government N 42, October 9, 2014.

4. The RA Law on Charity, adopted on October 8, 2002

5. Minutes of the meeting of the Government of the Republic of Armenia dated March 23, 2017 on the approval of the concept of the Law of the Republic of Armenia "On Volunteer Activities and Volunteer Work".

What should be reflected in the Law and regulations?

- status of volunteers; - social guarantees; - medical insurance; - definition what is voluntarism; - regulation with the private sector; - time aspects (for preparedness, capacity building, response, holidays); - separate regulations on minimum requirements on PPE, uniforms; - database teams and unit to be registered in the database and information to be centralized; - regulations regarding employers.

The draft of the Law was published in the official site (https://www.e-draft.am/). Different organizations could use this site and read the document and provide their feedback and recommendations on it. As it is for today, MES, Red Cross and other organizations have provided their feedback on the Law of the Republic of Armenia "On Volunteer Activities and Volunteer Work" (https://www.e-draft.am/projects/2516/about).

The Ministry on Social Welfare is collecting the recommendations and they will be incorporated into the final draft and then forwarded directly to the Parliament.

There is a Parliamentary Commission which will inform the partners when it will be included into the agenda of the next Parliamentary sessions

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It is proposed that MES is responsible for the decision making.

Depending on the phase of the disaster the regulations for the volunteer’s team will be different. If it is local level disaster before the rescue forces arrive from the centers or urban areas, it is the responsivity of the community leader to dispatch and coordinate the response. If the rescue forces are in place, the volunteers will report directly to them. It is regulated by the Law.

If the situation does not require the rescue forces involvement then the local resources could be used and the community will be responsible for providing this support.

It is called the overall management and cooperation management approaches.

Mobilization and communication.

When disaster identified in the community then they call 911, they may not know the phone number of the unit in the community. Then 911 direct the call to the community where this unit is located. Then they will start the response until when necessary the rescue forces will arrive.

This response will be performed under the management of the community or the volunteers team leader who will be trained.

In case of major disaster then it should be regulated by Government, by MES, and volunteers perform an auxiliary role.

Preference by partners after the discussion is that the volunteers should be affiliated to the community, not to the governmental organizations or RC. It is mainly because of sustainability concerns. Overall provision and support should be made by the community.

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