This year, the Civil Defense and Operational Information Administration (CAOIP) started working in the Riga municipality, the head of which was appointed during an open competition, the former head of the operational information center of the Jelgava municipality, Gints Reinsons.
The new administration was created to effectively coordinate the cooperation of municipal authorities and the resources under their control, as well as to strengthen the capacity of the municipality to prevent civil protection risks and to respond in crisis situations.
“I am pleased that in Riga we are moving with fast and concrete steps towards organizing the field of civil protection. Russia’s pin-scale invasion of Ukraine and the challenges created by the recent pandemic force us to think about the safety and protection of the residents of the Latvian capital at a completely different level. We have managed to attract strong professionals. The residents of Riga will notice some changes soon, but there will also be various structural changes that the residents will not feel so directly, but they will be very important for our civil defense capabilities,” says Linda Ozola, Riga’s vice-mayor and head of the Security, Order and Corruption Prevention Committee.
“Measures to strengthen Riga’s civil defense system will include changes that, in the course of the process, must significantly improve the capital’s civil defense capabilities – we will conduct a comprehensive audit of the municipality’s critical infrastructure, identifying the necessary improvements. Our goal is to create a unified civil defense eco-system of Riga, which will be developed in close coordination with the national civil defense system,” emphasizes CAOIP head Reinsons.
The evaluation of the effectiveness of the civil defense system in Riga started last spring, following the experience gained during the Covid-19 pandemic and in response to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Until now, the planning of Riga’s civil defense and action in crisis situations was one of the many functions of the Riga Municipality Police.
Civil protection and the challenges related to its provision are an interdisciplinary issue that extends beyond the competence of the municipal police. Many municipal institutions are involved in the provision of civil protection measures. The new administration is subordinate to the executive director of the city of Riga.
Three departments have been established in the administration: Civil Protection Department, Operational Information and Critical Infrastructure Monitoring Department and Process and Risk Monitoring Department. The main activities of the new administration are maintenance of the civil defense system, management of crisis situations, monitoring of the urban environment and critical infrastructure, participation in the implementation of smart city solutions, promotion of digitization processes, automation of the decision-making process, as well as promotion of cooperation during civil defense.
It is expected that the Civil Defense and Operational Information Administration’s priority will initially be building civil defense capacity.
