Capacity-Building Sub-Committee discusses new projects and challenges

In his welcome remarks, Vice Admiral Nurhidayat of Indonesia highlighted the importance of practice and repetition in the learning process, quoting the words of the author Ann Voskomp.

Practice is the hardest part of learning, and training is the essence of transformation.

Vice Admiral Nurhidayat, Chief Hydrographer Indonesian Navy

The Sub-Committee recognized the efforts made by the IHO Secretariat, governments, and other organizations, particularly the Republic of Korea, the Nippon Foundation and Canada, in securing funds for the Capacity Building programmes in 2021 and 2022, for the benefit of IHO Member States.

The offer in terms of educational courses has been particularly prolific in 2022, led by a high demand from IHO Member States and a consistent offer of Hydrography Cat A and B and Cartography B courses sponsored by the Republic of Korea and the Nippon Foundation, under the aegis of Memorandum of Understanding signed with the IHO. More than 30 candidates will be selected by the end of this year to follow these courses at the University of Southern Mississippi (USM), the United Kingdom Hydrographic Office (UKHO) and the Korean Hydrographic and Oceanographic Agency (KHOA).

Despite the pandemic, we managed to maintain a certain level of Capacity Building activity through online courses and seminars with attendance from multiple regions, thanks to the hard work of the Capacity Building coordinators

Mr Flier, Chair of the Capacity Building Sub-Committee

A new Capacity Building Management System has been implemented with the support of KHOA which gives the Capacity Building coordinators more flexibility in managing and coordinating the requests coming from the respective regions. In addition, the new IHO e-learning center established at KHOA is in testing phase, and initial results can be accessed here.

One area which can be improved upon is reducing gender imbalance in the field. After its first year of action, the Empowering Women in Hydrography (EWH) project has succeeded in raising awareness about some issues in the workplace. The project organized a webinar on gender-balance and empowering leaders which aimed to highlight some of the benefits to managers of being “gender-bilingual”. The project is also organizing internships to help women gain experience and progress in their careers. This includes an internship in outreach and communication at the IHO Secretariat, 3 internships related with the review of IBSC programmes, as well as practical at-sea experiences thanks to NOAA. The project also aims to give bigger visibility to women in the hydrographic community, and the EWH webpages will features interviews with women from different areas.

I would like to draw the CBSC’s attention to the resilience and ability to deal constructively with well over two years of pandemic. The latter reduced the possibility of conducting capacity building activities in presence, but did not interrupt the smooth running of programmes over the past two years.

Mr Sinapi, IHO Director

During the meeting in Bali, the CBSC approved a new Capacity Building Strategy which is now aligned with the IHO Strategic plan for 2021-2026. The strategy has been amended to include Phase 0 addressing hydrographic governance and the addition of a 5th step, Monitoring of Effectiveness (MoE), to the existing 4 steps of CB (Awareness, Assessment, Analysis and Action).

The CBSC-20 meeting was the first in person gathering after two years of pandemic, offering opportunities to participants to debate and discuss in the margins. The participants unanimously applauded Pushidrosal for their hospitality and the excellent hosting arrangements.