The Kick-off Meeting of the IPA III Period “Building a Disaster Resilient Türkiye” Project, financed by the European Union, was held on 21 January 2026 at the premises of the Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency of the Ministry of Interior.

The meeting was attended by Mr. Akif TÜRKEL, Sector Manager at the Delegation of the European Union to Türkiye; Assoc. Prof. Dr. İsmail Raci BAYER, Head of the Project Implementation Department and IPA Director at the General Directorate of European Union and Foreign Relations of the Ministry of Environment, Urbanization and Climate Change; Mr. Mehmet Yunus İNAN, Head of the Project Preparation and Monitoring Department and Head of Managing Authority; Ms. Esra HACIALİOĞLU, Group Head at the Department of Foreign Relations and International Humanitarian Aid of AFAD; Contracting Expert Mr. Güven SEYDİOĞLU; as well as representatives from the General Directorate of European Union and Foreign Relations and AFAD.

Representatives of the contractor consortium, consisting of KPMG d.o.o. Beograd, Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia, Norges Geotekniske Institutt, and KPMG Yönetim Danışmanlığı A.Ş., also attended the meeting.

Within the scope of the meeting, the project team delivered presentations covering the overall framework of the project, its objectives and activities, inception phase works and the draft work plan, as well as operational procedures and working arrangements.

During meeting stakeholder institutions shared their expectations and priorities within the framework of the Terms of Reference. The meeting was concluded with an open discussion session.

Through the project, which will be implemented over a period of 36 months, it is aimed to strengthen disaster risk management capacity in Türkiye, enhance institutional cooperation for disaster preparedness and response, improve local-level disaster resilience in selected pilot provinces, and support science-based decision-making processes.