On 19 April the ICAO EUR/NAT office in coordination with the chair people of the ECHO initiative Working Group (WG) conducted a webinar in English and Russian languages with simultaneous interpretation to familiarize States in the EUR/NAT regions with the initiative which was created to develop an inclusive, region-wide and impartial mechanism for targeted and prioritized assistance and capacity building activities, establishment of close coordination among States, regional organizations and industry stakeholders and to avoid duplication but provide effective and efficient assistance to all States and leave no country behind in implementing ICAO Annex 17 requirements.
The webinar explained the background, establishment, goals, developments and achievements of the ECHO initiative between 2019 and 2022. A little benchmarking exercise was included to receive feedback and new ideas which shall be taken into account for further developments. The webinar was recorded and can be found on the ECHO website:
Welcome to ECHO Initiative website! (icao.int)
On 20/21 April the ECHO initiative WG conducted its fourth meeting to move the initiative forward. The Terms of Reference (ToR) were amended to agree on procedures which allow access to new WG members, on changes in the reporting requirement to ENAVSECG and the election of chairs. Further discussions included the improvement of the ECHO initiative website and its promotion, the technical development of the capacity building mapping tool and the best way of publishing/promoting already given information as well as gathering new and more and making it known to a wide range of States in the EUR/NAT regions, but also beyond – on a long run globally.
The WG also discussed the link to the WG on training having the chair lady of this WG participating as a regular member, the potential for complementary work and its role in contributing to ideas regarding new training and guidance material.
Moving forward the development of a useful, easy to access and navigate tool / catalogue which offers a huge variety of capacity building opportunities from the widest possible range of entities is the main goal, including the evaluation of options for a greater visibility and moving the initiative to a global level. WG members will continue their activities to improve and grow the capacity building availability tool/catalogue, the ECHO website and discuss their work in the next meeting envisaged for the last quarter of 2022.
