From 3 to 5 December 2025, the 20th session of the Intergovernmental Coordination Group for the Tsunami Early Warning and Mitigation System in the North-eastern Atlantic, the Mediterranean and Connected Seas (ICG/NEAMTWS) was held at UNESCO headquarters in Paris. This year's session coincided with the 20th anniversary of the establishment of the NEAMTWS system and represented a key moment to take stock of the progress made and future priorities in tsunami risk reduction across the region.
It was three intense days of work in which representatives of the Tsunami Service Providers and national centres of expertise in the NEAMTWS area shared the progress of their activities and planned the work and objectives that will involve the four Working Groups and Task Teams over the coming months, with a view to strengthening the coordination of the warning system.
During the session, Alessandro Amato (INGV) was confirmed for another two years as Chair of the ICG-NEAMTWS by acclamation of those present, confirming continuity in the performance of activities. The Chair retraced two decades of activity through a storymap created by the INGVterremoti team, which highlights key moments, shared objectives and results achieved, combining multimedia content, images, texts and insights to offer a clear and effective narrative of the evolution of the system and the role of the participating countries.
During the session, the progress of the CoastWAVE 2.0 project, recognised as one of the actions approved under the UN Ocean Decade Tsunami Programme, was also presented. The delegations from France, Italy, Spain, Turkey, Portugal and Egypt illustrated the main results achieved at national level, with particular attention to the strengthening of warning systems, the preparedness of coastal communities and the adoption of the UNESCO Tsunami Ready programme. As part of the work, preparatory activities were also launched for the NEAMWave26 regional exercise, scheduled for 2026, and the operational priorities of the new working groups dedicated to governance, non-seismic tsunamis, documentation and consolidation of the NEAMTWS system were defined. The session was part of the ICG/NEAMTWS strategic path towards 2030 (Ocean Decade), aimed at improving risk assessment, the interoperability of observation networks and the response capacity of communities.