The UN-SPIDER programme is conducting the 7th annual meeting of its Regional Support Offices (RSOs) in the premises of the United Nations Office at Vienna (UNOV). The meeting brings together representatives of thirteen of the twenty RSOs and additional supporters of the progamme. The network of RSOs is a very strong pillar to the programme, as RSOs contribute to UN-SPIDER activities in efforts related to capacity building, institutional strengthening, and knowledge management.
Since 2009, UN-SPIDER has been signing cooperation agreements with regional and national institutions to engage them as RSOs. By June 2016, the programme has 20 RSOs. Some of these are regional organizations such as RCMRD in Africa, ADPC, ICIMOD and IMWI in Asia and CATHALAC in Latin America and the Caribbean. National agencies and universities also operated RSOs, such as ASAL in Algeria, CONAE in Argentina, IGAC in Colombia, ZLF/UniBonn in Germany, IAASARS of NOA in Greece, RIRS/KRF university in Hungary, LAPAN in Indonesia, ISA in the Islamic Republic of Iran, ADRC in Japan, NASRDA in Nigeria, SUPARCO in Pakistan, ROSA in Romania, NASU-SSAU in Ukraine, EMERCOM in Russia and the Disaster Risk Reduction Centre of UWI in Trinidad.
In this annual meeting, RSOs will review activities conducted in 2015, lessons learned and recommendations from all technical advisory missions conducted by the programme, a set of potential projects elaborated by the staff of UN-SPIDER based on the recommendations from these technical advisory missions and other efforts, and upcoming activities. Outcomes from this annual meeting of the RSOs will feed into the UN-SPIDER+10 conference that will be conducted on 7 and 8 June also at UNOV.
