The Office of the Secretary of Defense for Security Cooperation is hosting a Central American Maritime Regional Initiative (CAMRI) Workshop at the William J. Perry Center for Hemispheric Defense Studies, May 2-6, 2016. Partner nations from Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Panama are participating in the workshop to enhance maritime forces maintenance and logistics systems and improve operational readiness within littoral waters. The workshop introduces participants to several factors to be considered when developing maritime capabilities, as well as creating the systems and structures necessary to ensure the long-term sustainment of these. Some of these factors include strategy and policy development; planning and budgeting processes; and maintenance, and logistics systems. Additionally, the workshop incorporates good governance modules, including how ministries could absorb new capabilities in the short-term, and support them in the long-term through appropriate ministry-level planning, budgeting, and sustainment processes.

The workshop key speakers include Thomas W. Ross, Jr., Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Security Cooperation, Dr. Rebecca Bill Chavez, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Western Hemisphere Affairs, and Minister Counselor Ian Brownlee, Director of the State Department’s Office of Central American Affairs. Lectures and panel discussions are facilitated by subject matter experts from the State Department, US Coast Guard, the Defense Governance and Management Team, the Defense Institute for International Legal Studies, the Naval Postgraduate School Center for Civil-Military Relations, and the William J. Perry Center for Hemispheric Defense Studies.

At the conclusion of the workshop participants develop security cooperation proposals to be funded by the United States Government to respond to the maritime domain needs of Central America.