The engagement of informal volunteers in disaster management in Europe

This article examines the policies and institutional arrangements for integrating informal volunteers, the methods and tools for their engagement, and the reported benefits and challenges of involving volunteers in disaster management in Germany, Italy, Belgium, Hungary, Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Estonia. 

The study revealed that disaster management systems in these countries are taking modest steps towards opening their traditional command-and-control structures to participation by informal volunteers. Although informal volunteers can be most usefully engaged following established policies or plans that recognise and outline spontaneous volunteer management practices, only in Sweden and Norway, where volunteering is more common, is the engagement of informal volunteers somewhat regulated, providing an opportunity to formally insure them.