On October 27, the planning phase of Exercise MECODEX 2024 officially began with the Concept Development Conference (CDC), in which the bases for training planning were presented.
The meeting was held virtually, with the participation of representatives of the following organizations of Peru, host country of MECODEX 2024: Ministry of Defense, National Institute of Civil Defense (INDECI) and Delegates of Peru to the Inter-American Defense Board. On behalf of the IADB, members of the Disaster Cooperation Division were present, in charge of providing technical advice on carrying out the exercise.
MECODE (Disaster Cooperation Mechanism) is a humanitarian assistance mechanism designed by the Conference of Defense Ministers of the Americas (CMDA) and developed by the IADB. It is based on the exchange of updated, reliable and timely information between the 34 member countries and the regional and subregional civil-military cooperation systems.
MECODEX is an annual crisis simulation exercise designed, planned and executed by the IADB to validate the processes and sub-processes developed for MECODE.
For Colonel Orlando Melvin Ugaz Bartolo, of the Peruvian Army, Head of the Disaster Cooperation Division of the IADB, the CDC meeting was an opportunity to discuss the general lines of the exercise, in addition to allowing some of those responsible for planning and execution of MECODEX 2024 will interact for the first time.
The first edition of MECODEX, held in 2022 at the IADB facilities in Washington – DC, USA, simulated an earthquake followed by a tsunami warning in a fictitious country, and focused on actions at the political and strategic level of the coordination of disaster response. The 2nd edition, held in 2023 in Quito, Ecuador, simulated an earthquake in that country and tried to train actions at an operational and tactical level, as well as Ecuadorian interagency relations.
In 2024, the 3rd edition of MECODEX will take place in Peru, with the support of the Ministry of Defense of that country, and must contemplate actions at all levels, in order to validate the processes of the CMDA Disaster Cooperation Mechanism.
