At the request of ten partner countries of the South East and Eastern Europe (SEEE) region, the SEEE Regional Secretariat initiated conducting a series of capacity building and online training activities, aimed at enhancing the Chemical, Biological Radiological and Nuclear (CBRN) risk assessment and mitigation capabilities. These training sessions were conducted within the framework of the European Union’s CBRN Centres of Excellence (CoE) Initiative, in close cooperation with the European Commission (EC) through its Joint Research Centre and its Service for Foreign Policy Instruments, and the United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute (UNICRI)
The training package included two generic regional training sessions on the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 31000 Risk Management, followed by two practical training sessions on the CBRN Risk Assessment. Both training packages were conducted in July and December respectively. Fifty-four nominated trainees from nine countries of the SEEE region attended two summer training courses on 14 and 21 July 2021. Same participants who completed the initial summer training sessions were invited to attend the CBRN Risk Assessment course conducted recently on 1 and 16 December 2021 for the Balkan and Eastern European subregions.
The CBRN Risk Assessment practical training sessions delivered in December consisted of six “breakout sessions” dedicated to discussing in group the following components: identifying the context; identifying the CBRN Risk ideas; describing CBRN risks; CBRN Risk Prioritization; CBRN Risk Treatment; and CBRN Risk Assurance. Participants from the nine SEEE countries were assigned to their respective country groups during all six breakout sessions. This exercise allowed participants to practice the CBRN Risk Assessment with their own countrymates, so that they may repeat it when necessary with their CBRN National Team members back at home.
Since the SEEE partner countries have successfully completed a series of regional generic training sessions, they were encouraged to consider the possibility of requesting additional national training session on specific CBRN Threat Assessment issues. This tailored national training session can be easily adopted and become a country specific capacity building activity to address any selected CBRN area of their interest.
The SEEE Regional Secretariat, the EC European Joint Research Centre, the EC Service for Foreign Policy Instruments and UNICRI will continue to render their support to partner countries in moving towards the third step of the process, which aims at the development of the national CBRN Threat Assessment. This approach in CBRN Risk Management and CBRN Threat Assessment can easily replicated in any the other seven regions which are part of the EU’s CBRN CoE Initiative. Partner countries may avail themselves of this opportunity prior to developing their CBRN National Strategies and National Action Plans.
All four training courses were funded by the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre and conducted in English language. The SEEE Regional Secretariat used the professional Zoom communication platform and received simultaneous interpretation from the Albanian, Macedonian, Serbo-Croatian and Russian languages, which were graciously provided thanks to cooperation with the EU CBRN CoE Project P53.
Read more at the United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute
