FORMEZ – a centre for training and studies - is an Italian government agency whose mission is to foster the process of modernization and innovation in public administration, with particular attention being paid to regional and local authorities. This process of modernization and innovation put FORMEZ at the core of a series of actions aimed at introducing innovative management systems. FORMEZ realizes its mission trough staff training within organizations.

FORMEZ has assisted local authorities on critical topics such as local development, the environment, territorial security, civil protection, and so on. With regard to civil protection, FORMEZ started its activity in 1981, after the earthquake that hit the Basilicata and Campania regions in November 1980. In fact, we found that the lack of training was one of the causes of the poor response to the disaster. Since the '80s, in collaboration with the department of civil protection, FORMEZ has realized :

• short seminaries and courses introducing civil protection topics to administrators, technicians and volunteers in local administrations,
• basic courses for civil protection operators in local authorities,
• training activities on forest fire fighting and environmental protection.

Within this framework FORMEZ supports local authority civil protection activities, through the training of specific decision-making skills relating to civil protection.

Training activities aim to improve the response to needs arising during a disaster, as well as to equip authorities for forecasting and prevention tasks, which are preliminary steps before the management of a crisis and necessary recovery actions following disasters.

Among the several activities that FORMEZ has realized for many regional and local authorities, particular mention should be given to the integrated training project 2001-2003.

This project was aimed at local authorities and volunteers organizations, following an agreement by the Italian civil protection department, and involved managers and civil servants from local administrations, in addition to civil protection volunteers.

The main training activities realized over three years from 2001 to 2003 were :

• Basic courses for civil protection operators,
• Refresher courses in civil protection, in order to develop the skills for dealing with a risk that could involve the entire Italian territory,
• Courses for experts qualified in assessing the seismic vulnerability of buildings in the event of earthquakes,
• Course for organizers and members of volunteer associations in order to provide methods to improve the organizational, logistic and managerial aspects of volunteer associations. There were also special courses on forest fire-fighting, and courses for training the trainers, so as to help volunteer organizations learn how to organize the training of their own members.

Since 2004, with regards to civil protection topics, FORMEZ has organized :

• Masters exams for civil protection operators (disaster management),
• International activities,
• The mayors and municipal administrators project.

The most important international activities are :

• Project “alba 2” – cooperation project in Albania – now finished,
• Pilot project : management model to deal with the effects of cross-border industrial accidents, in the mean and lower basin of the Danube,
• Balkan project (regional cooperation initiative) : strengthening and training of public administrations in six Balkan countries,
• China – European public administration (cepa) programme.

In the ambit of the strategies developed for territorial governance and the new institutional order of civil protection, the mayors (and municipal administrators) project considers the mayor as a key actor who plays a primary role in civil protection. However, in reality, mayors face considerable problems because of their difficulties in correctly interpreting their role and related tasks.

On the one hand, such difficulties can be ascribed to the lack of training and information for local administrators, and on the other to the number of commitments among which civil protection is low on the scale of priority.

Within this project we want to reach a few training objectives, in particular :

• to make mayors aware of the role that the civil protection system assigns to them as well as the legal and penal consequences if they do not accomplish their tasks,
• to equip the mayors with cognitive instruments in order to allow them to manage the complex system of civil protection : forecasting and prevention, emergency planning and management, recovery to normality, etc.
• to facilitate and increase the exchange of experiences and information among all those who deal with civil protection,
• to encourage the creation of a "network" of administrators for civil protection (i.e. a professional community) able to support the choices and the responsibilities of each single administrator.

Future training / information actions include :

• the organization of brief seminars and the use of web and e-learning information technology,
• the transfer and dissemination of know-how with flexible web-based methods,
• the creation of a professional “on line community” for the exchange of opinions and experiences among mayors and administrators.

Course catalogue : FORMEZ offers a range of courses carried out in agreement with the Department of Civil Protection, which guarantees their scientific validity and quality, in addition to the presence of its own lecturers and entry to the final examinations.