IOC Regional Offices
The regional offices provide IOC and GOOS the ability to serve our member states more closely. Representation and regional involvement are enhanced by promoting activities specific the regions and of importance to the greater GOOS goals.
Perth Office
In partnership with the Government of Western Australia, and the Commonwealth of Australia through its Bureau of Meteorology and other Commonwealth marine agencies, the IOC established a regional office in Perth, Western Australia in 1999. The Perth Office co-ordinates a full range of IOC activities and some that use resources from other UNESCO sectors. Its primary role is to facilitate the balanced development and enhancement of programmes of the Global Ocean Observing System (GOOS) in the region.
The office provides a Southern hemisphere focus for GOOS; develops an outreach programme, especially for capacity building for the nations of the Indian Ocean, Southeast Asia and the Southwest Pacific; organizes conferences, workshops and other communication and awareness-raising activities; strengthen links between IOC international GOOS activities and relevant Australian agencies and industry; develops proposals to obtain resources necessary to carry out local and regional GOOS activities; provides information about GOOS, acting as a conduit between local and regional GOOS participants and overall GOOS structure; promotes the transfer of in situ and remotely-sensed data to and from users and suppliers; and strengthens links with related IOC and UNESCO programmes and relevant regional offices.
The office is located on the premises of the Australian Bureau of Meteorology.
Rio de Janeiro Office
The GOOS support office in Rio de Janeiro was established in October 2002 with a Memorandum of Understanding between the IOC and the government of Brazil. The office is charged to oversee the pilot projects of GOOS in the Tropical and South Atlantic; aid in the design of GOOS projects in the region; organize training, conferences and awareness raising activities; and strengthen relationships between the governments in the region and international bodies involved with the GOOS project.
Toulouse Office
The JCOMM in situ observing platform support centre, JCOMMOPS, is based in Toulouse, France. JCOMMOPS operates under the auspices of the Joint WMO-IOC Technical Commission for Oceanographic and Marine Meterology (JCOMM) and is hosted by CLS and funded through national contributions from member states.
JCOMMOPS provides coordination at the international level for oceanographic and marine observations from drifting buoys, moored buoys in the high seas (Data Buoy Cooperation Panel), sub-surface profiling floats (Argo programme) and ships of opportunity (Ship Observations Team). JCOMMOPS is also the home of the OceanSITES project office. It aims to assist those in charge of implementing the national components of these programmes, through an integrated and international approach.
Two Technical Coordinators work at JCOMMOPS - Mathieu Belbéoch and Hester Viola. They are tasked with supporting the operational needs of these communities.
Suva Office
A full-time coordinator of the Pacific Islands Global Ocean Observing System (PI-GOOS) was appointed in 2004 as a joint initiative between the Secretariat of the Pacific Islands Applied Geoscience Commission (SOPAC) and the Perth Regional Programme Office of IOC/UNESCO. PI-GOOS serves all 15 Pacific Island SOPAC Member Countries and is coordinated from SOPAC's offices in Suva, Fiji.
The work of PI-GOOS is overseen by an Advisory Committee comprising donors and partners from across the Pacific region. The Advisory Committee meets once a year and reports at the Annual Session of the SOPAC Governing Council. This provides all SOPAC member countries with an opportunity to comment and advise on the future direction of the PI-GOOS programme.
Documents such as the PI-GOOS work plan, strategy, annual report and terms of reference for the Advisory Committe can be downloaded.
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