Official Launch of the Strategic Partnership for Advancing Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) Capabilities
08.05.2026
On May 7th, the official launch of the " Strategic Partnership for Advancing Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) Capabilities” between the Polish Center for International Aid (PCPM), the National Disaster Management Unit (NDMU), and the counties of Nairobi and Kiambu took place at the Fire and Rescue Training Center (FIRETRACK) in Kiambu.
In addition to representatives of the Partnership parties, the ceremony was attended by delegates from the Kenyan Ministry of Defence and Ministry of Interior and Administration, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN OCHA), Chief Fire Officers Association - Kenya (CFOA-K), and the Red Cross Kenya, as well as firefighters form Nairobi and Kiambu units. The guest of honor was Inspector General of Police, Douglas Kanja Kirocho. The Embassy of Poland in Nairobi was represented by Magdalena Moryksiewicz, Deputy Ambassador, and Paweł Pijanowski, First Secretary for Economic Affairs and Development Cooperation.
The ceremony included a demonstration of the skills of the USAR team at the FIRETRACK center's training range – the first facility of its kind in East Africa. The range and the USAR team were established at the Nairobi and Kiambu fire departments in cooperation with the NDMU as part of the Polish Aid project entitled Building the capacity of the rescue services in Kenya to carry out search and rescue operations in construction disasters, funded by the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 2023-2026. The project addresses the problem of building collapses, which remains a major challenge in the densely populated Nairobi metropolitan area.
