Gunvor Kronman
CEO
Hanaholmen
Finland
Whilst multilateral and international agreements and cooperation is more and more challenged, the realities faced by citizens all over the world are increasingly the result of global developments. When a crisis hits, it seldom respects national borders.
The Swedish-Finnish crisis preparedness program the Hanaholmen Initiative was launched in August 2021 as a direct response to the lack of international scenario-planning and cooperation during the corona pandemic. The aim of the program is to strengthen cooperation between Finland and Sweden before and during civilian emergencies such as fires, floods, hybrid threats, pandemics, and war.
The program is planned and delivered by Hanaholmen, the Swedish Defense University and the Finnish Security Committee in close cooperation with the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency (MSB) and the Finnish national emergency supply agency (NESA). In other words, all the central actors within the field of civil preparedness in Finland and Sweden are involved in the program.
At the heart of the program is an annual course, which follows the seven baseline requirements for national resilience identified by NATO as particularly important for civilian crisis preparedness. These include a resilient energy supply, a robust transport system and efficient management of large population movements. According to Jörg See, Nato´s Deputy Assistant Secretary General for Defence Policy and Planning at the NATO HQ in Brussels, Finland´s and Sweden´s approach to civil security is both sophisticated and well structured, and he believes that Finland and Sweden can take on a leading role in civil preparedness within the alliance.
Sweden and Finland - learning from each other
On the 24th of August 2023 the Finnish think tank Elisabeth Rehn - Bank of Ideas published a report on integrated security in Finland, Sweden and Estonia. The report focuses on several dimensions of security, such as traditional military security, international relations, leadership and civil crisis preparedness and management.
Interviewing leading security experts from all the three focus countries, the researchers noted that the interviewees knowledge of the security systems of the reference countries was very limited, but that they were eager to learn more and to increase trilateral ties and cooperation. At the same time, the report also points out the siloed nature of the national administrative systems and the “…lack of cross sectoral cooperation and exchange of information”. These observations are in line with the experiences we have had in the Hanaholmen Initiative.
The Hanaholmen Initiative focuses specifically on cross-sectoral cooperation and every course starts with a thorough introduction of the security concepts in both countries. During the first course in 2021, the teachers noted a thorough lack of this basic knowledge among both the Swedish and Finnish participants, just as the above research paper points out.
The Hanaholmen Initiative does not replace any existing Swedish-Finnish collaborations such as the Haga cooperation within the rescue sector and the Svalbard cooperation within healthcare. Quite on the contrary, it builds on the lessons learned from those programs, adding a different theoretical and practical breadth. Previous collaborations did not encompass all parts of society, including civil society and the business community, which is very important since civil security is largely dependent on private activities and business efforts.
The importance of a solid contact network
The basic idea of the Hanaholmen Initiative training course is that to manage a crisis in the best possible way, there needs to be an efficient, solid contact network between different sectors of society, both nationally and internationally. There also needs to be easy to understand and open communication, a clear distribution of responsibility and well-equipped emergency stockpiles, as well as excellent logistics that allow the smooth delivery of medication and other such necessities. All planning should be carefully done in advance, because when a crisis hits, there is seldom time or opportunity to create new and functioning forms of cooperation. As the Vice-Chancellor of the Swedish Defense University Robert Egnell recently put it: when the tanks roll across the border, there is no time to discuss the division of labor between decision makers.
The Hanaholmen Initiative is an advanced training course and consists of two modules of which one takes place in Finland and the other in Sweden. A course consists of approximately 20 participants, who come from all sectors of society and hold leading positions in companies and organizations that are critical to Finland’s and Sweden’s ability to function in a crisis.
Since we also want to make sure that the thoughts and ideas of the course participants come to use, the training program is followed up by a high-level forum. The forum consists of decision makers, business leaders, civil servants and security experts from both Finland and Sweden, who address the observations that have come up during the training program.
An international role model for bilateral cooperation
Now that Finland has become a member of NATO, and Sweden soon is about to become one, the civil defense area needs to be harmonized with the military strategy, improving societal security along with military defense. As Hasit Thankey, head of the enablement and resilience section in NATO: s defense policy and planning section pointed out during a seminar at Hanaholmen in August, it´s all about resilience, about recognizing the societal vulnerabilities and preparing better.
The focus on societal security will offer both Sweden and Finland tremendous opportunities but will also require adaptation and major financial investments. Crisis preparedness is dependent on fixed resources that are mainly created on a national basis, which means that various forms of bilateral and international cooperation require not only good planning, but also enough allocated time and economic resources.
Within the EU, the Critical Entities Resilience Directive, or CER, which entered into force in January 2023, will require measures and resources to strengthen the resilience of important societal activities. The EU is currently also working on a common stockpiling project, which, once ready, shall serve all EU countries.
All the actors involved in the Hanaholmen Initiative are aware that crisis management first and foremost takes place within the framework of the nation state and its democratic system where all sectors of society, from private companies to cities and disaster preparedness organizations, are involved. At the same time, and just as the Nordic prime ministers pointed out in a statement in 2021, we live in a reality where cross border crises and disasters require more, not less, international cooperation. Here Finland and Sweden and the Hanaholmen Initiative want to serve as role models and source of inspiration for other nations in Europe and beyond.