The Slovak experience with local-national fora – overview of the framework and process description

Abstract

The complexity of the emergency preparedness and post-accident management was recognised and analysed in depth as well as relations among different stakeholders, and their roles and tasks within the post-accident preparedness process. Each stakeholder defined its specific role and work, and forms a part of the complex system; each stakeholder defined where and how to be involved in the whole system. Recovery was defined in the Slovak legislation by one general word before the process of the post-accident preparedness started. The process revealed the recovery issues and started the discussion in depth. Communication between different stakeholders involved in the active work of the Slovak stakeholder panel at facilitated workshops, seminars, workshops, training courses and exercises was found to be very important to get a balanced view on various aspects of the issues at stake at the national, regional and local levels. It enabled a common language and a shared understanding of the challenges to be developed.