On 28 August, the DRMI welcomed 34 participants from 16 allied and partner nations (Congo, Costa Rica, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Indonesia, Italy, Jamaica, Jordan, Lithuania, Malawi, Malaysia, Oman, Philippines, Spain, and Trinidad-Tobago) and the United States to the fourth convening in FY23 of the four-week resident Defense Resources Management Course (DRMC 23-4). Additionally, four participants from the United States are taking the course virtually via distance learning.

After ten years of being conducted abroad solely as a mobile course, the United Nations (UN) Peacekeeping Operations Contingent Commanders Course (PKOCC) was once again delivered at DSCU’s Institute for Security Governance (ISG) schoolhouse in Monterey, California. ISG’s Peacekeeping and Exercises (PKX) functional team successfully conducted the two-week resident education course for 11 high-ranking participants from Bangladesh, Cameroon, The Gambia, Liberia, Mongolia, Peru, Senegal and Zambia. The UN PKOCC is a MAJ-COL level leadership course specifically geared towards discussing in detail the real-world challenges that participants face as the commanders of national contingents in ongoing UN Peacekeeping Operations.

The Defense Security Cooperation University’s (DSCU) Defense Institute of International Legal Studies (DIILS), located in Newport, R. I., recently surpassed the highest recorded annual total of international students in residence with DIILS.

The first South Asia Regional Disaster Response Exercise and Exchange (DREE) ended successfully with the closing ceremony at the end of July at the National Guard Headquarters in Guam. Guam’s governor, the Honorable Lou Leon Guerrero, served as the keynote speaker.

The themes of the eight-day exercise were regional cooperation, civil-military integration, and coordinated Humanitarian Assistance/Disaster Response for disasters in South Asia. The event was sponsored by the United States Army Pacific (USARPAC).

The Institute for Security Governance (ISG) Emergency Management and Resilience (EM&R) team supported a Kosovo-led inter-agency working group review and update of Kosovo’s National Response Plan (NRP). While completing revisions to the NRP, the working group identified use of a National Response Framework (NRF) as an EM best practice, and determined to develop an NRF for Kosovo as a strategic goal. Kosovo will use the revised NRP as its EM construct in the interim after formal approval and while developing the NRF. The Office of Defense Cooperation (ODC) views this strategy as progress toward reform and good governance.

A team from DSCU’s Defense Institute of International Legal Studies (DIILS) recently traveled to Somalia to meet with members of its military as part of an ongoing Security Cooperation program.