The post-crisis learning project brought together crisis managers from local municipalities in Estonia, Georgia, and Sweden for three webinars in April and May, as well as a final seminar that summarised the project’s activities. “On the Estonian side, representatives from four municipalities took part in the project: the city of Pärnu, city of Tallinn, Saaremaa Municipality, and Hiiumaa Municipality. The three countries’ joint project at the local level allowed us to learn from Sweden and Georgia’s crises-learning experiences,” said Hannes Nagel, head of the NGO Crisis Research Centre.

The final seminar of Malmö University’s post-crisis governance project was divided into two parts: the first half of the day featured a presentation by Sofia Kostytska (Ukraine), who visited Estonia with the help of the Estonian Foundation for Civil Society. “Kostytska’s presentation focused on learning and adapting in the midst of crises, something that the Ukrainian public sector and society have been dealing with since 2014,” Nagel pointed out. “In the second half of the day, we focused on testing the framework for post-situational learning analysis developed in Sweden and adapting it to Estonian circumstances.”

Post-crisis learning is a more visible phase of crisis management that is critical for learning from crises and properly examining failures. It is also critical to understand the scenarios in which crisis management is effective, which is why the project participants addressed various crisis and post-crisis management methods over the course of two months. Finally, participants agreed that whatever technology is utilised must be systematic in order to provide long-term advantages.

The NGO Crisis Research Centre would like to thank the participants from four Estonian municipalities for their contributions to the project’s success. The project brought together representatives from ten local organisations in Sweden, Georgia, and Estonia. “Our project participants initially completed an online curriculum concentrating on several areas of post-crisis management, with a strong emphasis on sharing their experiences. There was also a conference in each nation where local actors mapped the elements that support and impede post-crisis learning,” said Anne-May Nagel, project manager for the Estonian team.

🟧 Malmö University is the main partner of the TPCL project, which main activities were carried out within spring 2024, an overview of the project’s outcomes as well as a strategy for the network’s future work will be available in the autumn. The project is funded by the Swedish Institute.

In the third web meeting of the project, led by Malmö University, we started with a discussion of the homework from last time. Representatives of local authorities from Estonia, Georgia and Sweden participating in the project thus shared their experiences with post-crisis reflection and audits. We also talked about the need for an easy-to-use document tool for local authorities to analyse crises.

After discussing the homework, we were given an inspiring presentation by Dr Oleksandra Keudel. Her presentation “National resilience in local hands? Contribution of Ukrainian local self-government to managing crisis due to the Russian full-scale invasion” led to a number of questions from the participants, such as whether and how the preparation of local governments in Eastern and Western Ukraine differed.

Dr. Keudel focused on the importance of collaborative governance several times in her presentation and stressed that it has been one of the key factors of Ukraine’s resilience at the local level. This means that the role of local communities and volunteers in empowering local governments has been very important in Ukraine.

The next meeting is scheduled for May 28 as a hybrid meeting to take place simultaneously in Tallinn, Malmö, and Batumi. At this meeting, we will summarise what we have learned from the project and map the main obstacles on the road to post-crisis governance.

The results of the project will also be used to put together a concept for post-crisis learning at local level in the three countries, which will help to map both the current situation and the main obstacles to the development of the field in the participating countries.

🟧 Malmö University is the main partner of the TPCL project, which main activities will be carried out within spring 2024. The project is funded by the Swedish Institute.

Photo: May 2 meeting (Crisis Research Centre, 2024).

• What is your organization’s experience with audits and reflection up to this point?
• Does your organisation have staff members in the crisis unit who are responsible for monitoring and collecting feedback to document crisis experiences at both the organisational and individual levels?
• Would you be willing to implement a self-reflective auditing system in your organisation, from your point of view? If the answer is yes, then what obstacles may the undertaking potentially encounter?

On February 14, we presented our recently launched cooperation project on Georgian Ajara TV channel.  

Since 2020, crisis preparedness and management has received a lot of attention, but it is also important to think about what happens after a crisis. “In the maelstrom of crises, stabilisation and mitigation are the most sought-after goals, and this should be the main objective of crisis management, but post-crisis management is equally important for analysis and learning. Coming out of crises it is important to ask how we did, whether our plans worked and what could be done better next time. These questions and answers will help to systematically build both crisis management and prevention capacity,” said Anne-May Nagel, project manager for the Estonian side of the initiative, via web bridge.

The project will bring together representatives of 12 local organisations from Sweden, Georgia, Estonia. “The participants of our project will first go through an online module focusing on different aspects of post-crisis management, with an important focus on sharing their experiences. There will also be a meeting in each country, where local actors will map the factors supporting and hindering post-crisis learning,” said Giga Phartenadze, project manager of the Georgia side. 

You can watch the newsreel about the project introduction in here.

Malmö University will be the main partner of the TPCL project, which main activities will be carried out within spring 2024. The project is funded by the Swedish Institute.  

Recent years have seen a number of crises, and effective crisis management is both a need and an expectation of the public. Both crisis preparedness and crisis management have received a great deal of attention, but it is also important to consider what happens after the crisis. “In the midst of a crisis, the most desired outcome is stabilisation or mitigation, and this should be the goal of crisis management. However, once this aspect of the equation is resolved, crisis management does not end. When you emerge from a crisis, you must consider how you performed, whether your plans were successful, and what you should do differently the next time. These are questions that can be answered in the post-crisis learning phase,” said Anne-May Nagel, project manager for the Crisis Research Centre, an Estonian partner NGO.

The project will bring together representatives from 12 local-level organisations in Sweden, Georgia, and Estonia. Participants will first complete an online module focusing on various aspects of post-crisis management, with a strong emphasis on sharing their experiences. In addition, each country will host a meeting in which local actors will map the factors that support and hinder post-crisis learning. “The experience and input of the network of post-crisis management practitioners that will be established as a result of the project will also be captured in a post-crisis management concept paper, which will in particular serve as a basis for the needs of local partners to improve post-crisis management,” said Nagel.

Malmö University will be the main partner of the TPCL project, which will start activities in spring 2024. The project is funded by the Swedish Institute.