Civil Defense and Care Infrastructure: Key Pillars of Comprehensive Resilience

Europe is facing a new urgency to become better prepared for various threats to its security in the context of hybrid warfare and pressure from superpowers on the foundations of its free and liberal democratic societies. The concept of comprehensive defense is offering a framework for an integrated approach to resilience and readiness for crisis response involving multiple stakeholders.

Deliberately targeting the very basics of civil life, the Russian war against Ukraine forced the civil society to take initiative itself and find ad-hoc formats of cooperation with local and military authorities.

Ukrainian NGO „Expert Resource Gender in Detail" brought together a pool of experts to prepare a series of reports analyzing various aspects of  Ukraine's emergent comprehensive defense practices through a gender mainstreaming lens.  This approach highlights the critical importance of empowering and engaging women in defense efforts, demonstrating how gender perspectives  optimize the use of scarce human resources by leveraging diverse skills  and experiences across all sectors of societal resilience.

The expert roundtable will focus on care work and civil defense  as critical components of comprehensive defence strategies, drawing  lessons from Ukraine's wartime experience for Germany and Europe.  Experts will discuss how social infrastructure and civilian protection  systems can be strengthened through civilian engagement, volunteer  coordination, and institutional frameworks — building on Nordic best practices and Ukraine's practical implementation under pressure.

Program

13:30 lunch snack

14:00 - 15:30 Round table with following experts:

• Dr. Tamara Zlobina, Philosopher, initiator of research project on Ukrainian comprehensive defence, Head of the NGO “Expert Resource Gender in Detail”
• Dr. Olena Strelnyk, Dr. habil. in Sociology, feminist researcher, activist, and non-fiction writer.
• Nataliya Machalina, Expert in research centre Ukraine / Max Weber Foundation; civil defence expert in Gender in Detail’s project “Gender Mainstreaming in the Context of Comprehensive Defense”
• Dr. Cordula Dittmer, Senior researcher, Disaster Research Unit (DRU)
• Dr. Ulrike Hopp-Nishanka, Head of Task force Ukraine, Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development of Germany

Moderation: Robert Sperfeld, Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung

Contact: 
Anna Antonina Łysiak
E lysiak@boell.de