The regional Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) workshop for National Tsunami Warning Centres (NTWCs), Disaster Management Organisations (DMOs) and Broadcast Media to be conducted between 31 October and 3 November 2022 is part of continuous working process of the UNESCAP Project “Strengthening Tsunami Early Warning in the North-West Indian Ocean through Regional Cooperation” since its inception in 2019. The goal is to improve warning services and organize the national warning chains with an end-to-end perspective and SOPs at each step to assure timely warnings and effective community response, with due emphasis on self-protection for near source events.

The project strategy to improve warning chains is built around a working process at the national level in each of the North West Indian Ocean (NWIO) countries involved. The project has accordingly provided support at the regional level by bringing together high-level representatives from the countries to a) Highlight the need for the further development of the tsunami early warning system and the related processes in order to cope with near-field tsunamis; and b) Motivate the establishment of the necessary conditions and responsibilities for the respective national working processes. In addition, the project has been providing technical assistance through a series of regional SOP training/workshops to adapt the national warning chains and SOPs for each link in the chain in each country where necessary. Additional technical assistance has been provided through international experts and national consultants to backstop the National Working Groups to support the working processes in the countries, especially in Iran and Pakistan.

The hereby outlined workshop will bring together representatives of the NTWCs, DMOs at national and local levels and Broadcasting Media of the five countries involved in the project to: a) Share progress made since the end of Phase 1 of the project; b) Exchange good practices; and c) Discuss any  persisting challenges in developing SOPs along the national tsunami warning chains. The focus of this current workshop will be on the integration of local DMOs and Broadcast Media in the warning chain through well-coordinated and timeline-driven SOPs to assure the end-to-end functionality of the national warning chain.

The workshop will be conducted in a hybrid mode, including virtual meetings on the regional level combined with national face-to-face meeting in the participating countries.

Following this workshop and at the conclusion of the project's support to the warning chain development in the five partner countries, it is intended to test the developed SOPs in a simulation exercise. For this purpose, a tsunami warning table-top exercise is foreseen to be conducted in November 2022. 

The Concept Note and Agenda are available here.

The workshop objectives include the exchange of experiences, sharing of good practices and further work on open issues regarding the SOP development for NTWCs , NDMOs, P/LDMOs and Broadcast Media along the tsunami warning chains in the Makran region through:

1. Sharing the latest status of the SOP development along the tsunami warning chain in the participating countries
2. Sharing of good practices and examples, especially for  LDMO and Broadcast Media SOPs
3. Discussing and continuing the work on unresolved issues related to LDMO and Broadcast Media SOP development by the country teams
4. Outlook on further activities to be undertaken to consolidate the SOPs after the workshop and in order to prepare for the simulation exercise to be held in November 2022
5. Preparations for the simulation exercise