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.

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 (2015-2021)” 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.

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.

More information about the workshop can be found here. The report of the meeting will be made available soon.

On 2 September 2020 the second IOC Capacity Development Needs assessment survey was launched on https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/KN885MK. 

See also IOC Circular Letter 2803

The 2nd Session of the IOC Group of Experts on Capacity Development will be held on 26-27 October 2020 as an online meeting. The agenda is available HERE. The 2nd Session will review the status of implementation of the work plan of the fist session, discuss initial results of the 2nd CD needs assessment survey (launched in September 2020), and prepare for the revision of the IOC CD strategy for its next version (after 2021).