The delegation of The GCC Emergency Management Center, and a number of a GCC States representatives met on Tuesday, 18 February 2020, at the headquarters of the US Department of State in Washington, with an American delegation led by Sarah Newgate, director of Cultural and Scientific Affairs Program at the US State Department, and representatives of the US Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the US military, to discuss cooperation opportunities between the two sides in dealing with emergencies and crises, on the margins of the GCC delegation participation in the training "International Visitor Leadership Program" held on February 18.
The meeting, which was attended by Ms. Wajdan Ali Al-Aqab, Director in charge of the GCC Emergency Management Center, discussed practices in planning, preparing, responding to and recovering from emergencies that have a wide impact and reach, and the meeting reached an agreement in principle between the GCC Emergency Management Center and the US Department of State to exploit the U.S. Speaker program, which provides American experts and specialists to benefit from their vast experiences in various specialized scientific fields. They also agreed to start work on selecting a number of experts from this program to train cadres from the GCC Emergency Management Center and the GCC States in crisis and disaster management and emergency commensurate with the regional risks in the GCC States.
It is worth mentioning that the program was specially designed by the US State Department to suit the needs of the GCC states in Emergency Management.