The Regional Support Offices Meeting 2022 was conducted and organised by UN-SPIDER at the premises of the VIC in Vienna, from 14-16 November 2022. It was the first in-person meeting since the start of the COVID pandemic.
The UN-SPIDER programme has 25 Regional Support Offices (RSOs) and two new candidates spread over different regions. These RSOs are engaged in supporting activities of UN-SPIDER such as technical advisory support, rapid mapping during emergency response, preparing specific publications and contents for the knowledge portal and contributing to the workshop and conferences.
Every year, UN-SPIDER organizes a meeting with the RSOs to discuss the progress and new activities. This meeting came after a three year in-person meeting hiatus, and was requested by most RSO representatives, with the aim to exchange on the status of more recent activities of RSOs, their contributions to UN-SPIDER in recent years, any initiatives started in 2022, and possible contributions from RSOs to resource mobilization, new proposals/projects.
16 Regional Support Offices and two institutions, which are new candidates for becoming an RSO, attended the meeting. Additionally, representatives for agencies which have recently received a Technical Advisory mission by UN-SPIDER attended. This was completed by the attendance of external partners from the private sector, other UN agencies, and other affiliated partners.
UN-SPIDER used this opportunity to present on recent and planned future activities, outline current challenges due to the program's limited resources, and encourage further participation and contribution of the RSO network. The RSOs and external partners presented on current projects and applications, and shared information with the network. This was supported by discussions that were used proactively to exchange ideas about collaborating.
