IOC Group of Experts on Capacity Development

During its 29th Session, the IOC Assembly adopted Decision IOC-XXIX/10.1 establishing the IOC Group of Experts on Capacity Development. In this regard, the Assembly referred to its adoption of the IOC Capacity Development Strategy (2015-2021) which was published in 2015 as IOC/INF-1332.

The main objectives of the Group of Experts are to assist the global and regional programmes with the implementation of capacity development (CD) needs assessments, the development of related work plans, mobilization of resources, and provide advice on relevant methods and tools to deliver CD.

The Group will also advise the Assembly on, and start implementation of, the Transfer of Marine Technology Clearing House Mechanism (CHM) as requested by the IOC Criteria and Guidelines on the Transfer of Marine Technology (IOC/INF-1203), making use, to the largest extent possible, of existing data and information systems already available at IOC.

In July 2017 IOC Circular Letter 2680 was issued inviting Member States, as well as IOC scientific, technical and regional subsidiary bodies to nominate members of the Group. In addition, the Group may invite representatives of Partner organizations involved in CD activities. The membership of the Group was renewed at the 4th Session of the GE-CD held in Paris in November 2022.

The current membership of the Group can be found HERE. 

Activities of the Group

 

  • Fifth Session of the Group, 27-29 February 2024: The Fifth Session of the IOC Group of Experts on Capacity Development (GE-CD) was held in Paris, France from 27 to 29 February 2024. The meeting was attended by some 30 participants including members of the IOC Group of Experts on Capacity Development, invited experts, observers, IOC staff, and members of the CD Secretariat.

The GE-CD discussed the progress in its work plan from the 4th session and in line with the instructions from the 32nd session of the IOC Assembly (2023), following its adoption of the IOC CD Strategy 2023-2030 together with the promotional and outreach plan to promote the visibility of the new CD Strategy. The global and regional programmes and projects, and regional subsidiary bodies also reported on their activities in support of the implementation of the IOC CD strategy and their respective CD work plans. The Group also discussed the outcomes of the CD regional webinar series and IOC CD Needs Assessment Survey, including its next edition for 2024-2025, as well as other proposals and new initiatives such as the Ocean Training Internships and the Biodiversity Data Hub for the High Seas. 

Among other things, the Group decided to:

  • Approve the proposed revisions in the Terms of Reference of the GE-CD and instructed the Secretariat to submit the revised ToR for the approval of the IOC Executive Council, at its 52nd session in June 2024;
  • Call on IOC global programmes and regional subsidiary bodies and secretariats to deliver capacity development with more systematic approaches to ensure consistency between global, regional and national capacity development;
  • Recommend mapping the CD work plans of the global and regional programmes vis-à-vis the IOC CD Strategy to clearly demonstrate the targeted implementation of the IOC CD Strategy;
  • Recommend that the global and regional programmes prepare their draft CD workplans to share in the discussions at the next GE-CD session in time for the 33rd Session of the IOC Assembly;
  • Strongly advocate for leveraging the Decade initiatives such as the CD Facility and the Working Group 9 Vision 2030 white paper to amplify IOC capacity development delivery;
  • Agree to continue the term of Mr Alan Evans as Chair of the IOC Group of Experts on Capacity Development until the new membership of the GE-CD is formed;
  • Agree on the proposed work plan for the next inter-sessional period.

 More information about the workshop can be found here. The report of the meeting can be found here. 

 

  • Fourth Session of the Group, Hybrid, 25 November 2022: The Fourth Session of the IOC Group of Experts on Capacity Development (GE-CD) was held as a hybrid meeting on 25 November 2022. The meeting was attended by more than 30 participants including members of the IOC Group of Experts on Capacity Development, invited experts, IOC staff, and members of the CD Secretariat. The 21 members of the renewed Group of Experts were also invited in the meeting as observers. 

The GE-CD discussed the progress in its work plan in line with the instructions from the 31st session of the IOC Assembly (2021), most notably the preparation of the draft IOC CD Strategy 2023-2030 which will be submitted for adoption at the 32nd session of the IOC Assembly in June 2023. The global and regional programmes and projects, and regional subsidiary bodies also reported on their activities for the implementation of the IOC CD strategy within their respective work plans. The Group also discussed the developments in the complementary approach in the joint efforts between the IOC CD Needs Assessment Survey and the Global Ocean Science Report Tracker, as well as the UN Ocean Decade. 

The Group was also updated with the current status of the capacity development compendium, called the Ocean CD-Hub. Also, the Chair of the Working Group on Outreach provided updates on the potential plans in promoting the visibility of the IOC CD Strategy 2023-2030 to target stakeholders. The proposal will be submitted to the 32nd Session of the IOC Assembly in June 2023.

Among other things, the Group also decided to:

  • Approve draft 0 of the IOC CD Strategy 2023-2030 and requested the Secretariat to prepare the draft for submission for the adoption of the IOC Assembly, at its 32nd session in June 2023;
  • Abolish the Working Group on the revision of the IOC CD Strategy as the required actions had been completed during the inter-sessional period; 
  • Re-elect Mr Alan Evans as Chair of the IOC Group of Experts on Capacity Development for the next intersessional period;
  • Agree on the proposed revisions in the Terms of Reference of the GE-CD and instructed the Secretariat to submit the revised ToR for the approval of the IOC Assembly, at its 32nd session in June 2023;
  • Agree on the proposed work plan for the next intersessional period which includes the CD Needs Assessment Survey, the launch of the Ocean CD-Hub, and the development of an Outreach Plan for the new IOC CD Strategy. 

More information about the workshop can be found here. The report of the meeting can be found here. 

 

  • Third Session of the Group, online, 1-2 December 2021: The Third Session of the IOC Group of Experts on Capacity Development (GE-CD) was held online on 1-2 December 2021. The meeting was attended by more than 30 participants including members of the IOC Group of Experts on Capacity Development, IOC CD national focal points, invited experts and members of the IOC Secretariat.

    The GE-CD discussed the instructions from the 31st session of the IOC Assembly (2021) as well as their follow-up actions, and noted the revised terms of reference of the Group as decided by IOC-31. They also examined the outcomes of the second Capacity Development Needs Assessment Survey, and discussed recommendations for the next CD Needs Assessment Survey 2022-2023. The global and regional programmes and projects, and regional subsidiary bodies provided information on the implementation of the current IOC CD strategy within their respective work plans. The Group discussed the Capacity Development Chapter of the UN Ocean Decade (Decade) Implementation Plan and Decade actions related to Capacity Development. A summary of the work undertaken by the GE-CD Task Team on a review of the current IOC CD Strategy was provided, followed by agreement on the next steps to revise the Strategy. 

    Among other things, the Group decided to:

    • Re-elect Mr Ariel Troisi and Mr Alan Evans as co-Chairs of the IOC Group of Experts on Capacity Development;
    • Abolish the Inter-sessional Task Team on CD requirements of Member States in relation to the IOC CD Strategy - as it was reported that the required actions had been completed during the inter-sessional period - and that future needs assessments would be  carried out by the Secretariat, in coordination with the GE-CD 
    • Abolish the Inter-sessional Task Team responsible for reviewing the current IOC CD Strategy - as it was reported that the required actions had been completed;
    • Establish a Working Group to revise the IOC CD Strategy, to present at the 32nd Assembly of the IOC in 2023; and
    • Agree on the GE-CD workplan including the 3rd CD Needs Assessment Survey and the approach to promoting visibility and outreach of the revised IOC CD Strategy.

    More information about the workshop can be found here. The report of the meeting is now available here.

 

  • Second Session of the Group, online, 26 October 2020: The Second Session of the IOC Group of Experts on Capacity Development was held online on 26 October 2020. The meeting was attended by 63 participants including members of the IOC Group of Experts on Capaciy Development, IOC CD national focal points, invited experts and members of the IOC Secretariat.

    More information on the meeting here: http://www.ioc-cd.org/gecd2 
    Report of the meeting here http://www.ioc-cd.org/gecd2_report

    Taking into account the very limited time for the meeting (2.5 hours) the Group focused on required actions only. As it was reported that all required actions from the two Task Teams had been completed during the inter-sessional period, the Group decided to abolish the Inter-sessional Task Team on the implementation of a TMT/CHM portal and requested the Ocean InfoHub project to regularly report to the GE-CD on its work plans, activities and results. Taking into account the instruction by IODE-XXX to “repeat the CD survey at regular intervals (biannually),” the Group decided to continue the Inter-sessional Task Team on CD requirements but with revised terms of reference. The Group decided to undertake online consultations to agree on the revised terms of reference of the Task Team by December 2020.

    The meeting also discussed the contribution of IOC to the CD chapter of the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development. The Group noted that in addition to the CD initiatives conducted by IOC, the Decade may benefit from a better/wider articulation of already existing initiatives through a kind of “mentoring” of graduate and undergraduate courses in a way to incorporate the decade objectives, challenges and outputs. In addition, the Group considered that if the IOC should mobilise its capabilities and resources to support the Decade this would require the IOC to capture a holistic understanding of all/as many as possible CD initiatives (beyond IOC programmes) and to make these visible.

    The Group was also updated on the preliminary results of the second CD needs assessment survey which was launched on 1 September 2020 and will remain open until 1 February 2021. As of 12 October 2020, a total of 874 responses were received. In total, responses were received from 87 IOC member states which are developing countries. It was emphasized that more efforts are needed to reach out to countries that have not responded yet or below 10% response rate. The Group requested its Members as well as IOC CD focal points and IOC regional offices to promote OceanExpert within their country, region and other community contacts to obtain better coverage and instructed the Secrtariat to send reminders to member state contacts that have not responded to the survey.

    Noting that the current IOC CD strategy was developed for the period 2015-2021 and will “expire” in December 2021, the Group recommended that the end date of the current strategy should be extended to the end of 2023. In addition the Group decided to establish the “GE-CD Task Team related to the revision of the IOC CD strategy” and to submit its report for consideration by the 31st Session of the IOC Assembly (2021). The Group instructed the new Task Team, when established, to start its work as from 15 November 2020 and to submit its work to the co-Chairs of the GE-CD not later than 1 March 2021 for its approval and subsequent submission to the 31st Session of the IOC Assembly.

    More information on the Task Team can be found HERE (terms of reference, membership, meetings, results) 

  • The Group decided to re-elect Mr Ariel Troisi and Mr Alan Evans as co-Chairs of the IOC Group of Experts on Capacity Development.

 

  • First Session of the Group: Paris, France, 21-23 March 2018: The First Session of the IOC Group of Experts on Capacity Development was held in Paris between 21-23 March 2018. The meeting was attended by 41 participants including members of the Group of Experts, partner projects and organizations, and members of the IOC Secretariat. The meeting updated the needs assessments and gapa analyses that had been submitted, in draft form, to the 2017 Session of the IOC Assembly. In addition the meeting split into 3 regional sub-groups (IOCAFRICA, IOCARIBE, WESTPAC) and one special group on the planned Clearing House Mechanis (CHM) for the Transfer of Marine Technology (TMT). The 3 regional sub-groups discussed priority needs, ways how the global programmes can assist the regions, as well as common use of existing IOC methods and tools that can contribute to CD. The Group established 2 task teams that will focus on TMT/CHM and CD needs of SIDS, LDCs and IOC member states that are not members of the 4 IOC regional bodies. The report of the meeting is available HERE - MORE INFORMATION ON THE MEETING HERE.
    • The Group established the following Task Teams:
      • Task Team on the implementation of a TMT/CHM "portal" and related activities, to further seek answers on the questions and issues formulated by the sessional working group on TMT/CHM and taking into account the Decade preparations. The Task Team will develop the scoping and needs assessment for the CHM and (if possible) develop a proof of concept to be demonstrated at IOC-XXX. --- MEMBERSHIP HERE
      • Task Team on CD requirements of member states in relation to the CD strategy (taking into accoun the work already done and focusing on SIDS, LDCs and the Member States that are currently not member of any of the 3 sub-commissions and regional committees) --- MEMBERSHIP HERE

The two task teams had their first joint meeting at IOC Headquartrers, Paris between 13-14 March 2019. The meeting discussed the results of a survey (on CD needs assessment and on the clearing house mechanism - see also IOC Circular Letter 2738 ) which had been launched on 5 October 2018 until 14 February 2019. It focused on the three regional sub-commissions (IOCAFRICA, IOCARIBE, WESTPAC) and regional committee IOCIDIO, including SIDS.

The meeting discussed at length the content types that should be included in the CHM and concluded that the most important information to be included in the CHM/TMT are ‘universities and other organisations offering study grants and facilities in marine science’, ‘opportunities for participation in projects or initiatives’, and workshops, seminars and training courses at global, regional and sub-regional level, in particular those offering financial support’. Furthermore, SIDS and LDCs in particular assigned a higher score to all marine technologies compared to the overall responses, and assigned particularly higher attention to ‘Online blended learning, ocean-related courses and MOOCs’, compared to overall responses. Although online or blended courses were not included in the initial criteria and guidelines for TMT, it is to be noticed that those guidelines were published in 2005, and that at the time those kind of courses were not much developed yet. Mr Lescrauwaet, then presented the preferences of Member States in relation to the preferred model for the TMT/CHM. A hybrid model of a central portal integrating regional and thematic portals is broadly preferred. This requires interoperability between the central portal services and the integrated web sources. When analysing the differences between SIDS and LDCs and other Member States the first group expressed a clear preference for a central portal, and also a higher need for a human brokerage service that actively connects demand and offer, as well as the need for a community platform. Finally she concluded by showing that overall, 35 % of respondents think the proposed CHM will be essential to further developing ocean science capacity in their country (score 10/10). 75% score its importance above or equal to 8/10.

The meeting had also reviewed the CHM prototype developed by INVEMAR and available through http://portete.invemar.org.co/chm, a hybrid model, with a centralized portal that provides access to information sources identified by the users as most relevant (Databases on Training and Education resources, List of experts, Research vessels,..) and integrated from a number of existing web sources developed and maintained under IOC (OceanExpert, Ocean T eacher Global Academy, ODISCat,...).

The report of the meeting is available from HERE (Document IOC/GE-CD-TT-I/3). 

At the end of the meeting the Task Teams agreed on the following follow-up actions:

    ....... Follow-up action Status of implementation
1  The discussion held during this meeting led to the formulation of a set of recommendations to be submitted to the next session of the IOC Assembly in the form of a draft decision to be included in the Action Paper  done 
2  Ensure coordination of the work of the GE and its TTs with GOSR and CD aspects of the UN Decade of Ocean Science to be further discussed 
3  Repeat the CD survey biannually, possibly including CD implementation impact monitoring/metrics, also taking into account other methods such as regional reviews, science conferences etc.   planned for 2020
4  Identify CD efforts of other organizations and seek complementary cooperation  to be done 
 5 Link with other global, regional and national processes and strengthen the relationships with philanthropic, private partnerships and other regional organizations  to be done 
 6 Urge Member States to nominate IOC National Focal Points for Capacity Development who will be responsible for the coordination of their country’s participation in IOC’s CD activities IOC Circular Letter 2738 issued 5 October 2018, reminder IOC Circular Letter 2793 issued 27 January 2020.
result: see https://www.oceanexpert.net/group/424 
 7 Encourage the regional subsidiary bodies as well as regional components of global programmes to promote contributions to the biannual survey to be done 
 8 Organize a regional conference on CD requirements of Pacific SIDS involving IOC Member States as well as other stakeholders active in the region Planned for 2020 but Covid19 pandemic forced to change approach. Possibly online meeting, back to back with OIH P-SIDS
9 Present the report of the survey to IOC regional subsidiary bodies as well as global programmes inviting them to consider the results when drafting their CD work plans and activities done 
10 Match CD activities of global and regional bodies with needs of MS and summarize high level results using infographics. to be done 
11 Survey results suggest MS preference for hybrid model with central portal linking to regional and thematic web resources on the basis of interoperability-human brokerage element to be further investigated. IOC Ocean InfoHub proposal submitted to Government of Flanders, approved and project started 1 April 2020 
12 Recommend continued development of regional prototypes using the LAC prototype as an example, as well as establish a global secretariat. see 11 
   

 

Development of the IOC Ocean InfoHub Proposal

Between 5-8 August 2019 the ODIS-CHM/TMT Proposal Drafting Workshop was held at IOC Headquarters workshop was held. This event was organized in order to submit a proposal to the Flanders-UNESCO Trust Fund for Science (FUST) in September. The proposal was approved in December 2019 and started in April 2020. More information is available from IOC Ocean InfoHub

 

 

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