According to the Public Relations Department of the National Cartographic Center of Iran, quoted from the International Cooperation and Engineering Services Export Department, the ECO Technical Expert Group Meeting on Disaster Risk Reduction was held on 4th March 2025 in Erzurum, Turkey, with the participation of representatives from Iran, Turkey, Pakistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Northern Cyprus as observer members, as well as the Senior Coordinator of the Asia and Pacific Centre for the Development of Disaster Information Management (APDIM) as a webinar attendee.

 

The meeting was hosted by the Turkish Ministry of Interior Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency (AFAD) and Seyed Abdoreza Saadat, the General Manager of Geodesy and Land Surveying Department and the Head of Crisis Management Committee of NCC of Iran, along with representatives of National Disaster Management Organization (NDMO) of Iran, as well as the Geological Survey & Mineral Explorations of Iran (GSI), were present at the meeting.

 

 During this meeting, the delegates presented a report on the measures taken by ECO member countries to reduce disaster risk in the region. The representative of the National Cartographic Center of Iran, while raising the issues of “Development of Regional Spatial Data Infrastructure (R-SDI)” and “Establishment of a Geodetic Reference Framework for the ECO region (ECO-GRF)”, proposed holding a specialized meeting entitled “Spatial Data and Information Management for Sustainable Economic Development” and also proposed defining a regional project with the participation of member countries to monitor tectonic and geodynamic movements in the ECO region in order to reduce disaster risk.

 

During the meeting, a visual report was also presented on Turkey's response to the devastating earthquake of 2003, which killed more than 50,000 people. It should be noted that the Erzurum Winter Field Exercise is planned to take place from 5 to 7 March 2025 in Erzurum with the participation of representatives of ECO member countries.