The 4th meeting for Civil Defense Training Directors, Institutes and Schools organized by the International Civil Defense Organization (ICDO) concluded this weekend in Abu Dhabi. On the third day of the meeting, participating delegations visited the Civil Defense Academy and attended the graduation of an international training course in firefighting and rescue, which saw participation of several civil defense staff members representing 10 ICDO member states. The ceremony was attended by Brigadier General Mohamed Abdullah Al-Zaabi, Acting Commander-in-Chief of Civil Defense.

Following recommendations have been issued after the meeting :

1. To create a committee which would be in charge of supervising the Permanent Secretariat during the implementation of the training courses annually. This Committee gathers at the beginning of each year.

2. To mandate the committee to study the concept of standardizing ICDO international certificates, and to establish an annual database of all the trainees and trainers of the training programs. 

3. To standardize the terminologies and concepts in the field of civil defense training among the educational institutions of ICDO Member States.

4. To regulate and follow strictly the conditions of participation in each course. These conditions shall be made by the hosting institution/academy. The Permanent Secretariat shall insure the realizations of these conditions before communicating the candidates to the hosting institution/academy.

5. To reevaluate the relevance of ICDO regional centers and to draw concrete conclusions in order to be presented to the Executive Council in its next session.

6. To promote the idea of bilateral and multilateral visits exchange between academies, and to encourage the hosting country to cover the cost of accommodation while the Permanent Secretariat covers the traveling tickets of the delegations.  

7. To create a dedicated an electronic window for the training within the official ICDO website.

8. To request the following countries: Algeria – Burkina Faso – China – Egypt  – Jordon – Kazakhstan – Korea – Kuwait – Malaysia – Morocco - Oman – Russia (all institutions) – Saudi Arabia – Serbia - Tunisia – United Arab Emirates + Belarus – Switzerland – present their final training program proposal, with two possible dates, by Friday January 31st 2020. The proposal must include the following requirements:

•  The period of the course must be no less than 10 working days.

•  To send the content and conditions of the training course.

9. To invite the ICDO member states to prepare a draft of the five most essential training requirements (topics) that they seek training for, next year. The Permanent Secretariat will reach out its experts to conduct the maximum training requirements each country is in need for, taking into consideration the administrative and financial regulations of the ICDO: deadline is 31st Jan 2020. 

10. To prioritize the involvement of the experts and expertise of ICDO’s member states’ academies.

11. To encourage member states academies and institutions to focus more on the courses that deal with Training Trainers.