On December 5, the Undersecretary of Advisory Services (SAS) of the IADB, through its Disaster Cooperation Division (DCD), met with representatives of the European Union Military Staff – EUMS ) to discuss the possibilities of cooperation in the area of “Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Response”.
On the occasion, Colonel Gabriel Farias (Brazilian Air Force), member of the Disaster Cooperation Division, presented a summary of the activities developed by the Division, the conception of the Disaster Cooperation Mechanism between the Countries of the Conference of Defense Ministers of the Americas (MECODE/CDMA), a brief history of the MECODEX Exercises and the participation of IADB representatives in Exercises and Drills carried out in 2023 on the American Continent, with a focus on Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Response.
For his part, Mr. LtCol (Army) Tomasz KAWKA, Contact Point of the Military Staff of the European Union on the indicated topics, presented information on the general structure of the processes used in his organization and expressed his interest in obtaining more information about MECODE, as well as holding new meetings between both organizations in a timely manner, in order to deepen mutual knowledge and identify opportunities for cooperation.
As one of the results of the meeting, the IADB invited the EUMS to participate as an observer in the MECODEX 2024 Exercise, to be held in Peru, through a partnership between the Ministry of Defense of Peru, the Organization of American States ( OAS), the CDMA and the IADB.
