ICMP’s Wim Kok Center for Excellence and Learning (CEL) develops the capacity of government and civil society partners in addressing the issue of missing persons. The CEL facilitates the transfer of knowledge and expertise to government and civil society stakeholders around the world.
The CEL’s tasks include:
- Providing capacity-building and training opportunities to government agencies, families with missing relatives, civil society representatives, prosecutors, court-appointed experts and law enforcement personnel;
- Designing, developing, delivering and co-creating training programs and other learning activities for all ICMP stakeholders and partners on all aspects of the missing person process, including legal, investigative, scientific and technical aspects;
- Maintaining and providing access to a repository of training and peer-reviewed material that fosters understanding of data collection, investigation procedures, the legal rights of families of the missing and government obligations; acting as a focal point for in-person and virtual dialogue, collaboration and knowledge sharing through hosting a Learning Management System and scenario-based learning programs;
- Promoting good training practices, supporting the development of curricula, needs assessment processes, and the development of monitoring and evaluation tools for ICMP’s capacity-building activities; and
- Coordinating, in conjunction with ICMP Human Resources, training activities related to ICMP staff competence, implementation of new methods, induction of new staff, and individual training for professional development.
The CEL’s work is supported by the ICMP Panel of Experts, which comprises renowned researchers, professionals and experts in the field of human rights, rule of law, justice and forensic science. The CEL aims to improve strategies, learning approaches, methods and tools to enhance a global understanding across all ICMP activities of the causes of missing persons scenarios and the circumstances of the missing.
“ICMP’s Wim Kok Center for Excellence and Learning (CEL) was formally named after the late former Dutch Prime Minister, who died in October 2018 and who had been an ICMP Commissioner since 2002. The Commissioners wanted to honor Wim Kok because not only did he bring remarkable energy and commitment to ICMP’s mission, as an experienced political leader he consistently made the case for a systemic response to the complex global challenge of missing persons.” – Her Majesty Queen Noor, ICMP Commissioner Diplomat Magazine May 2020