Regional workshops

Regional workshop on emerging threats

Duration: 3 days
Number of participants: max. 30
Language : EN, FR

What does it involve?
The workshop includes a detailed discussion on ICAO and regional views of current threats and key risk management issues faced by Partner States (PS). These include, but need not be limited to: threats to cyber security; threats from insiders within the organisation; threats from remotely-piloted aircraft systems (i.e. drones); and threats from improvised chemical, biological and radiological devices (i.e. threats to aircraft). Other topics such as risk management, risk assessment and mitigation can be added to adapt to the regional, sub-regional or local threat picture. The workshop will also cover a close examination of actual or planned attacks by terrorist groups, in order to set such threats in context. Finally, the workshop will examine and debate mitigation put in place by the PSs, as well as ‘best practice’ examples of such mitigation deployed by ECAC Member States. 

Who should participate?

  • Government agencies involved in aviation security policy development and delivery (e.g. Civil Aviation Authority, Ministry of Interior and other law enforcement departments, Ministry of Defence and intelligence agencies);
  • Airport management and managers from any private contractors delivering security at airports within the PSs;
  • Airport Emergency Preparedness and Response Committees;
  • Air Traffic Control;
  • Security representatives from the Airport Operations Committee .

What is expected of the Partner States?
The PSs are expected to nominate experts who meet the requirements set for the workshop population (appropriate position, competency in the language of the workshop). 

How will it work?
The workshop will be delivered over a period of a maximum of 3 working days to a maximum of 30 participants. The initial phase of the discussion will look at international (ICAO) and regional/sub-regional views on current threats posed to the civil aviation sector (‘assessing the threat’). The debate will then focus on specific examples of actual or planned attacks by terrorist groups mirror the methodology or engage the target described in the threat phase of the workshop. This approach provides practical examples of how such threats can transform into real incidents (‘understanding the nature of the threat’). In the subsequent phase of the workshop (‘mitigating the threat’), the discussion will look at two aspects relating to mitigation measures designed specifically to address such threats and produce an acceptable level of residual risk. Firstly, actual mitigation measures currently in place within the territory of a number of PSs will be addressed; and, secondly, some examples of ‘best practice’ mitigation measures put in place by Member States of ECAC will be discussed. Both elements of the workshop will involve breakout sessions, with participants dividing into smaller groups to discuss the detail of threats and current mitigation methodology. One of the breakout sessions may consist of an exercise or case study to design additional mitigation measures to underpin those already in place, thereby reducing the residual risk once implemented.

What will be delivered?
Feedback from the breakout sessions should provide participants with substantive issues for contemplation and practical examples of effective mitigation. At the end of the workshop, the participants will be provided with all the technical presentations delivered by subject-matter experts during the workshop via a restricted website. This will assist in underpinning the transfer of knowledge and experience attained during the interactive presentations, Q&A sessions and the debriefings associated with breakout sessions. 

What happens afterwards?
The CASE II Project’s wider programme of activities includes a range of operational, on-site activities to be organised in the individual PSs. These address the various emerging threats at a national level by providing mentoring and support on a range of topics with some focussed on the insider threat which is considered a particularly relevant concern.

Inter-regional workshop on emerging threats / risk management

Duration: 3 days
Number of participants: max. 60
Language : EN, FR

Inter-regional workshops will focus on key areas of aviation security such as emerging threats and risk management. Taking the example of the inter-regional workshop on emerging threats, the objectives and content of this activity will be identical to the equivalent regional workshop, except that this activity is designed to involve at least two of the regions in the scope of the CASE II Project: Asia, Africa and the Middle East.

Therefore, the sharing of good practice and experience would take place between regions, rather than at a regional or sub-regional level. This should also enable a comparison of regional threat pictures.

Extending to the inter-regional level should also lead to a bigger event, with a targeted audience of 60 participants (maximum) instead of 30. The duration should remain at 3 days.

Such an event will most likely be organised jointly with the relevant regional organisations which play a role similar to ECAC in Europe and which can be considered as counter-parts of ECAC.

Accordingly, regional organisations may take into account the collective priorities identified by their respective Member States and decide to enlarge the number of topics to be covered by the activity (e.g. to some of the existing threats) or alternatively, to focus on a limited number of threats and possibly only one (cyber security for instance).

For all other aspects, please refer to the descriptor of the regional work-shop on emerging threats.