The INSARAG Regional Group for Africa and Europe held its third meeting, and the Steering Group its fifth meeting, hosted by the Government of Germany and under the auspices of the United Nations Department for Humanitarian Affairs (DHA), on 27 – 30 April 1997 at the Bundesanstalt Technisches Hilfswerk (THW) Federal Training Centre, Neuhausen, Germany. Participants represented twenty-two countries, the United Nations system, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and non-governmental organizations, involved in disaster response both as assisting and receiving countries.