Informing humanitarians worldwide 24/7 — a service provided by UN OCHA

Montenegro

Comprehensive analysis of the disaster risk reduction and management system for agriculture in Montenegro

Attachments

Introduction

Montenegro is prone to various natural hazards, such as floods, droughts, storms, landslides, forest fires and so on. It is expected that with climate change, various types of extreme weather events will increase in frequency and severity, in particular floods, droughts, forest fires as well as the spread of plant and animal pests and diseases, which may adversely impact the agriculture sector in Montenegro.

Agriculture is highly vulnerable to the impacts of these natural and biological hazards, due to the climate sensitivity of the sector. Extreme weather events like floods, storms and droughts can lead to significant damage to agricultural infrastructure and facilities, such as irrigation systems, animal shelters, and food storages, that can completely destroy crops, affect livestock production and so on. As a result, disasters can significantly set back development and overall economic gains achieved over the years. Within this context, reducing disaster risk and helping people to build resilience to climate variability and change is crucial, in particular for those whose lives and livelihoods are dependent on the sector.

Montenegro has established a legal and institutional framework that is focused on disaster risk reduction. It is on its way to transition from an emergency response oriented approach towards a more proactive disaster risk reduction approach.

The aim of this report is to highlight the current strengths of the system as well as indicate existing gaps and capacity needs to further enhance it. This report provides recommendations to strengthen the existing institutional system to help reduce the adverse impacts of natural hazards on the agriculture sector in Montenegro.

This comprehensive review includes a general overview of the country’s agricultural sector and outlines the most frequent natural hazards that are impacting the sector. It is followed by an analysis of the existing legal, policy and institutional structure and discusses various components of the system, including, the functioning of early warning systems, assessment of disaster risks, existing damages and losses assessments and the availability of agricultural insurance for farmers. Lastly, it concludes by providing recommendations for improving the current system.

This report is prepared for the project ‘Enhancement of Disaster Risk Reduction and Management (DRR/M) capacities and mainstreaming of Climate Change Adaptation (CCA) practices into the Agricultural Sector in the Western Balkans (TCP/RER/3504)’ and may lead to the implementation of certain capacity building interventions as recommended in this document.