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On 20 August, 2019, Amb. Krzysztof Paturej, ICCSS President and Gen. Khalid Alshantir, head of Engineering Corps within Jordan Armed Forces (JAF), officially opened ICCSS Africa and Middle East Office in Amman. The ICCSS Office situated within the Amman CBRN Training Center, will be directly responsible for furthering chemical safety and security cooperation in Jordan and the Middle East. The Office will develop and implement modern chemical safety and security solutions in African countries. During the recent visit ICCSS President met with the leaders of JAF and the Jordan University of Science of Technology (JUST).

Following the successful completion of the project on enhancing chemical safety and security in Jordan and the Middle East, financed by the US Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) 2018 Grant, Jordan partners, ICCSS and partners from the region agreed that there is a growing  importance by the countries of the region to cooperate to enhance chemical safety and security nationally and regionally. They confirmed an interest in developing measures to reduce threats to production, transport storage and use of chemicals and energy carriers. The development of the Middle East chemical safety and security process will include a number of activities and projects, to assist countries of the region to reduce chemical threats and bring the Middle East on action against chemical threat. The process brings together chemical and environmental safety and security leaders and practitioners from government, international organizations, industry, academia and civil society in an industry-oriented, science-based, and non-political forum. The process will develop chemical safety and security confidence building measures for the Middle East.

The ICCSS, jointly with the Jordan partners will seek the development of Jordan as a hub of regional chemical safety and security. The Amman CBRN Training Center will serve the region to educate, train all relevant stakeholders from administration, industry and academic centers. It would be a provider of best practices, capacity building and offer templates for national chemical safety and security programs. The cooperation includes the enhancement of chemical safety and security measures in the Aqaba Special Economic Zone (ASEZA), the development with JUST, cyber-security and reliability for chemical and petrochemical industries.

ICCSS has established a solid presence in Africa and supports to close growing gap between the expanding of chemical activities in Africa and lack of chemical and environmental safety and security. In 2013-2016 ICCSS has developed and implemented, within the grant of Norway, a unique training program on chemical safety and security in Kenya. ICCSS has participated in activities by national and international partners to assist African countries to mitigate chemical and environmental natural and ma-made disasters.

The ICCSS African and Middle Office will assist governments, industries, academia and civil society in development and conduct of gap analysis, introducing national level regulatory frameworks, best practices and capacity building in chemical and environmental safety and security.