On Thursday 23rd February 2023 Executive Director David Cleave and Deputy Executive Director Aidyn Turebayev met with the Director of  the Center for Emergency Situations and Disaster Risk Reduction, Republic of Kazakhstan (CESDRR) Serik Aubakirov. ISTC and CESDRR had earlier signed a Memorandum of Cooperation in 2018 and last met in 2020. The meeting  was an opportunity to reacquaint CESDRR and the new Director to the activities of ISTC and to look at possible areas of cooperation and collaboration in current ISTC Projects; (e.g. P87 PRECA Mass Gatherings, Water Security, Earth monitoring, critical infrastructure and seismic issues amongst the topics discussed. 

Also discussed was an EU DG ECHO intitiative to further expand on a region to region event at the end of 2023 similar to the recent CESDRR, EU, UNDRR seminar that took place in Almaty on 15th February on Strengthening Disaster Resilience and Accelerating Implementation of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction in Central Asia. Also discussed the current Action Plan and Road Map (2022-2023) on the implementation of the strategy for the development of cooperation between Central Asian Countries in Disaster Risk Reduction for 202-2023 which included several areas of mutual interest where collaboration between ISTC & CESDRR  could be mutually beneficial. Both agreed to exchange more information on relevant project areas and to further explore such cooperation possibilities .