Forty Years Of The Coordinating Committee For Geoscience - CCOP

involving either the Permanent Representatives or their deputies of all the Member Countries,
was facilitated by an Honorary Adviser (Dr A J Reedman) and after more consultation with the
Member Countries the restructured programme, “Geoscience for a Sustainable Future”, was
published in January, 2002, as the new Strategic Plan of CCOP (Figure 15). The programme was
divided into three ‘Sectors’; the Geo-Resources Sector, the Geo-Environment Sector and the
Geo-Information Sector. Together the three sectors contained a total of seven distinct
programmes (see Figure 16) and the rationale and strategic aims of each were described in the
published plan. At the same time a new mission statement for CCOP was agreed. This aimed to
be a clear re-statement of CCOP’s current aims, which broadly reflected those in force since the
organisation’s original conception:
“The Coordinating Committee for Geoscience Programmes in East and Southeast Asia (CCOP)
is an intergovernmental organization whose mission is to facilitate and co-ordinate the
implementatiom of applied geoscience programmes in East and Southeast Asia in order to
contribute to economic development and improved quality of life within the region.
To this end, the CCOP promotes capacity building, technology transfer, exchange of information
and institutional linkages for sustainable resource development, management of geoinformation,
geo-hazard mitigation and protection of the environment”.
The slightly modified title of the organisation, seen in the first line of the statement above, was
adopted in 2001 but the acronym ‘CCOP’ was preserved. Now CCOP unequivocally embraced
all geoscience activities in the region, whether concerned with marine, coastal or land-based
geoscience.
Box 3
Waking Up to Reality
When I first became involved with CCOP as the Permanent Representative of Malaysia in the
1980s, it never occurred to me then that reaching the age of forty was worthy of a celebration.
And yet here we are, in the case of CCOP, doing just that. You may very well ask why.
The early 1970s through to the early 1980s was a period of high geological activity in a
region where, for the most part, relatively little was known of the offshore mineral potential
of East and Southeast Asia. This was the reason why CCOP had been formed, with most of
its members in the early stages of economic and technological development. Regional studies
and regional cooperation were the key phrases in the discussions of how to progress. In this
respect, Member Countries were to benefit greatly from technical advice and more tangible
assistance from the Cooperating Countries and The United Nations through CCOP. In effect,
CCOP was to become an adopted child of UNDP. As that ‘collective child’ we felt secure
and even positively spoiled. Like untroubled and spoilt children we were not ready for the
rude awakening to reality that was to come.
On reflection, we cannot say that we were not warned. By the mid-eighties, marking the end
of our metaphorical childhood, clear signals were already being sent indicating that CCOP
must prepare itself to become an independent adult. This would mean that to survive we had
to run CCOP more like a commercial enterprise and become an Intergovernmental
Organisation rather than a programme under the auspices of the UN. This would be a totally
new environment for us. We were like a child, successfully nurtured and grown, but not yet
ready, and therefore unwilling, to leave home and face the world outside on its own.
24
A World of Difference