Georgian defence minister attends multinational workshop on Non-Commissioned Officers
Levan Izoria, the Georgian Minister of Defence, opened the 3rd Multinational Non-Commissioned Officer (NCO) Workshop in Tbilisi, on 19 March 2019. Entitled “Developing an Educated NCO Corps”, the event was organised by NATO’s Defence Education Enhancement Programme (DEEP) together with the Partnership for Peace Consortium.
In his welcome address, the Minister emphasised the importance of the workshop and underlined the necessity for NCO education. “Alongside the NATO-Georgia Exercise 2019, today we started another important NATO activity. Namely, within the Defence Education Enhancement Programme, we have presented our success in the development of an NCO corps to our partners. The achievements in this field are truly remarkable and have been noted in the framework of the workshop. Such activities once again underline the fact that our cooperation with NATO has never been as strong as it is today.”
The Georgian Chief of Defence, Major General Vladimer Chachibaia, and Command Sergeant Major of the Georgian Defence Forces, Koba Tsirekidze, also welcomed the participants. More than 50 representatives from 15 countries are attending the workshop, including sergeant majors from NATO member states and partner countries as well as the Command Senior Enlisted Leaders of Allied Command Operations and Allied Command Transformation.
The aims of the 3rd Multinational Workshop are to produce a framework document on NCO corps development for partner countries as well as to discuss the interoperability of national NCO education programmes and initiatives, and their implementation in bilateral formats with NATO.
Georgia also hosted the two previous DEEP workshops on NCO professionalisation. In 2016 and 2018, participants discussed NCO education, as well as the challenges that armed forces are facing in the 21st century.