On June 14, 2023, as part of the presentations planned at the 63rd Evaluation and Planning meeting (PREPLAN), held between June 11 and 17 in Salvador, Brazil, as part of the System of Cooperation between the American Air Forces (SICOFAA) , Brazilian Air Force Colonel Leonardo V. MANGRICH, Deputy Head of the IADB Project Management Office, accompanied by the staff of the Disaster Cooperation Division, presented to the audience a conference on the Cooperation Mechanism in Case of Disasters (MECODE).
It briefly detailed the origin of the Inter-American Defense Board, highlighting the importance of multilateralism and the background of MECODE, a mechanism in which the IADB fulfills the functions of Permanent Secretariat, in accordance with the powers granted by the Council of Ministers of Defense of the Americas (CMDA), in the Santiago Declaration (XIV CMDA – 2020), ratified in the Brasilia Declaration (XV CMDA – 2022).
In this framework, MECODE/CMDA was conceptualized as a complementary and voluntary instrument for military and civil cooperation systems, which act in response to disasters, respecting the sovereignty of each country and whose main objective is collaboration and increase of the efficiency of those involved in humanitarian assistance actions, through the exchange of reliable, current, timely and time-sensitive information; the process carried out to develop and validate the mechanism was also explained, through the execution of the MECODEX 2022 exercises. , developed by the IADB, at the strategic-operational levels and the tactical-operational application exercise MECODEX 2023, developed in collaboration between the IADB and the Armed Forces of Ecuador, which was carried out in the month of May, at the facilities of the IADB. Joint Defense Military Academy of Ecuador (ADEMIC).
During the conference, the opportunities for cooperation between the IADB and SICOFAA were presented, organizations that have the capacity to support each other, with the aim of improving their internal processes and increasing efficiency in the fulfillment of their missions.
