The Baltic Sea Region - a safe and secure place to live

The Kristiansand-based Commission on Health and Social Affairs is working on safety and security issues, getting ready for the X General Conference in September. At the October meeting in Vâxjô, the Executive Board authorised the UBC commissions to start the preparations for the workshops at the GC in Kristiansand. The commission is working on theme IV: How to make the BSR a safer and more secure place. We focus on how to work locally and within international networks, fighting some of the serious threats against safe and secure societies in the region. We wish to show examples of how societies can be more secure, safer or decrease social exclusion. The main issues chosen are drug prevention, human trafficking and prostitution, poverty and social exclusion. We look at all of these issues in the current economic crisis. The gender perspective will run through all topics.

Ms Hilde Engenes from Kristiansand recently presented the work of the Commission at the Executive Board Meeting in Jyvaskyla, Finland. Mr Per Bodker Andersen, Mr Pawei Zaboklicki and Mr Jorgen Kristiansen.

During the preparations there has been a close cooperation with the Commission on Youth Issues. Representatives from the Youth Conference will be working along as moderators during the workshop. By choosing this design we wish to underline that these serious matters can only be dealt with across generations, within cities, across cities and across borders.

During the planning and preparation for the GC there will be several meetings across UBC commissions concerning the theme for the workshop. The commission is cooperating with the Commission on Education on the significant issue "The economic crises: A threat against health, social welfare and including societies. How to secure better opportunities for group at risk?" Cities in Estonia, with Tartu as moderator on behalf of the Commission, has taken a particular responsibility for this focus area. Already during the first meeting in the late autumn of 2008, it was clear that the stringent economic conditions will contain both threats and possibilities for UBC cities.

The crucial question is: What are the major threats and how can they be solved and dealt with in a sustainable way in the Baltic Sea area? We wish to design a workshop on 23 September that will highlight this in an interesting and fruitful way.