CBRN ends disaster management workshop

Members of the Liberia Chemical, Biological and Radiological Nuclear (CBRN) team have ended a four-day technical training workshop with a call on government to support the national team. 

The four-day exercise brought together stakeholders from the Armed Forces of Liberia, Liberia National Police, National Fire Service, Bureau of Immigration and Naturalization, the Executive Protection Service, amongst others. It was held at the Gabriel L. Dennis Foreign Service Institute recently.

A Foreign Ministry release says, the exercise, which was conducted by European Union experts on CBRN and supported by the Center of Excellence of the African-Atlantic Façade region under the supervision of the National Focal Person on CBRN activities in Liberia, Assistant Professor Martin Scott-Tabi was meant to build the capacity of the CBRN national team on crisis detection, preparedness, prevention, response and recovery techniques in line with international best practices and standards.

Speaking at the close of the workshop, the Deputy Foreign Minister for International Cooperation and Economic Integration, Mr. Dehpue Zuo, who proxy for the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ms. Marjon Kamara, expressed gratitude to the partners and participants at the workshop and hailed them for taking their time to come and acquire critical CBRN knowledge and familiarize themselves with diverse techniques in identifying and counteracting CBRN threats.

He said the timing of the training of Liberians in CBRN first response by the European Union Center of Excellence of the African-Atlantic Façade region is demonstrative and relevant as it coincides with the end of the United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) security responsibility here which was handed over to the Liberian government on July 1.

Deputy Minister Zuo added that the exercise validates EU’s commitment under the state building contract entered into by and between the Government of Liberia and the European Union on May 11 2015, which constitutes an integral part of EU cooperation program set to provide budgetary and technical support to Liberia, placing emphasis on critical health service, judicial and security reform and services.

He pointed out that the upsurge in the number of faith-based extremist organizations with divergent national and international agenda foster the vision of a CBRN terrorist incident by the international community as an imminent threat to world peace and security.

Mr Zuo then thanked the EU Center of Excellence of the African Atlantic Façade for making available its experts for this training and called on the Liberian CBRN Team to keep up the hard work while cautioning them of the immense challenges ahead in mitigating CBRN risks nationwide.

In brief remarks, a cross-section of the facilitators and participants expressed delight at attending the training and thanked the EU for the awareness and knowledge gained and at the same time called on the government to support the CBRN initiatives in Liberia.-Press release