First responders in the Western Balkans: Strengthening Capacities and Preparedness for a Resilient Future

First responders are crucial to disaster risk management in the Western Balkans, but their capacity and preparedness vary significantly across countries and sectors. To enable comparable, evidence-based insights, this review uses a harmonized Readiness to Respond (R2R) framework across five key sectors: firefighting and rescue, police, emergency medical services (EMS), civil protection, and armed forces. It evaluates national preparedness in the Western Balkans with the goals to (i) assess sectoral and system-wide readiness against international standards; (ii) standardize measurement through the R2R index; and (iii) identify key gaps and practical opportunities to strengthen resilience. The review combines quantitative and qualitative data across six dimensions: Staffing, Equipment & Infrastructure, Training & Education, Legislation & Strategies, Coordination & Governance, and Main Challenges. Sector scores range from 0 to 60, with an overall or system score from 0 to 360, normalized across tiers. Data sources include official documents, international reports, and secondary literature, supplemented by expert judgment when data are missing or inconsistent. No country reaches high readiness (≥281/360); Serbia (275/360) and Montenegro (270/360) score highest but still fall within the medium readiness category. Furthermore, Albania (243/360) is moderate, while North Macedonia (220/360) and Bosnia and Herzegovina (205/360) lag. Police and armed forces generally outperform EMS and civil protection, which face staffing shortages, aging equipment, uneven training, and fragmented governance. Firefighting capacity varies greatly, with Montenegro excelling while others demonstrate modest capability. Montenegro exhibits the most balanced overall profile, whereas Bosnia and Herzegovina ranks lowest due to structural fragmentation, with Serbia and Albania in the middle, and North Macedonia trailing slightly. Four main regional constraints are identified: outdated equipment and infrastructure, persistent human resource shortages (notably in EMS and specialized rescue), weak multi-level coordination, and reliance on external aid for modernization and training. Moving from moderate to high readiness requires lifecycle-based fleet renewal, expanding accredited training and retention programs, harmonizing SOPs and metrics, establishing integrated asset and incident registries, and defining volunteer roles. Countries need to shift from donation-based procurement to multi-year, standards-driven capability development, co-financed through EU/NATO/UN mechanisms. Given shared risks and limited scale, cross-border cooperation—such as mutual aid, pooled aerial firefighting and CBRN assets, and joint exercises—offers the most cost-effective way to build interoperable, resilient first responder systems across the Western Balkans.