The EU values societal resilience deeply and, therefore, aims at enhancing resilience both inside and outside the EU. This is done through supporting good governance, accountable institutions, and working closely with civil society with a specific focus on EU’s neighbouring regions in the East and South. The EU’s strategy on resilience has been written down in the 2013 – 2020 Resilience Action Plan and is closely related to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal 16 aimed at promoting ‘peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions". The EU will enhance its approach to resilience by addressing state, societal, and community resilience informed by the new European Consensus on Development.
Enhancing societal resilience both within and outside the EU is achieved by focusing on various aspects of the issue. The EU understands that resilient societies are built upon sustainable and balanced socioeconomic development aimed at addressing inequalities, vulnerabilities and their root causes. Specifically, the EU will focus its efforts on enhancing resilience on the following topics:
- Critical Infrastructure protection (European Programme for Critical Infrastructure Protection)
- Energy Security
- Climate Adaptation (Climate Adaptation Strategy)
- Civil Protection (EU Civil Protection Mechanism)
- Economic Resilience
- Global Health Risks
Also, the EU attempts to enhance the resilience of societies by focusing amongst others on power relationships, strategies of dealing with risk, environmental fragility, violent conflict, malicious use of ICT, counter-terrorism and countering violent extremism. In order to address the issues linked to security, the EU will enhance the contribution to its Common Security and Defense Policy (CSDP). Efforts could include training and capacity building under the Capacity Building in support of Security and Development initiative.
Details of projects in this theme can be found on the Explore DRM Projects tool.