On August 10, members of the Disaster Cooperation Division of the Inter-American Defense Board met, virtually, with Jorge Zequeira, regional officer in Panama for civil-military relations of the International Federation of Societies of Defense. Red Cross and Red Crescent.
The objective of the meeting was to analyze the possibilities of collaboration between the institutions, within the framework of which a presentation was made of the Disaster Cooperation Mechanism, MECODE, currently being developed within the scope of the IADB.
During the explanation, the importance of multilateralism in addressing disaster situations was highlighted and the background of MECODE was presented, a mechanism in which the IADB fulfills the functions of Permanent Secretariat, in accordance with the powers conferred by the Council of Defense Ministers. of the Americas (CMDA) in the Santiago Declaration (XIV CMDA-2020), ratified in the Brasilia Declaration (XV CMDA-2022).
The final objective is to have an agile and efficient system for the exchange of information and data of interest, which allows international collaboration between countries and organizations in cases of calamity, acting for the benefit of the population of the countries affected by this type of occurrences. .
On the occasion, the scope of the Conference on Environmental Protection that will be led by the IADB in 2023 was also detailed, in order to present the lessons learned and good practices, observed in the performance of the Armed Forces, which contribute to the environmental protection, in order to promote its dissemination and implementation in the hemisphere.
In his speech, the representative of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies expressed his willingness to work around a schedule that allows for joint and collaborative activities between the institutions, for the benefit of the countries of the region, at which time he also congratulated the MECODE development initiative, which he considered an important tool to integrate into the current capabilities of the different representations of the Red Cross and Red Crescent. Finally, he invited the members of the IADB to participate in the Federation's activities throughout 2023, such as the workshops scheduled for October on some current topics, such as climate change, pandemics and migration, among others of interest.
