The Armed Forces Academy of General Milan Rastislav Stefanik (AFA) through its Professional Military Education Center (PMEC) and its International Courses Department (ICD) provides courses for further education of officers not only from Slovak Armed Forces, but also from NATO and Partners.

In this connection, on May 22^nd – 24^th 2023, representatives of AFA, Vice-rector for science, Brig. Gen. (ret.) Boris Ďurkech and LTC René Hečko – chief of ICD, took place at Annual Discipline Conference (ACD) of Operations Planning, Operations Assessment and Alternative Analysis (OPOAAA), which took place at the headquarters of the NATO Operations Command and Control Center of Excellence (NATO C2COE) in Utrecht, the Netherlands.

At the conference, our representatives presented the mission, structure and vision of the Armed Forces Academy, as well as the mission and courses of the PMEC with the intention of having certified other operational planning courses, the need for which is growing within NATO. The conference gave opportunities for discussion between educational institutions and RA, DH in order to broaden horizons and obtain information about NATO's requirements for education and individual training (E&IT), which are the basis for the possibility of providing quality courses for NATO needs.

Representatives of DH and RA plan to visit AFA in near future with the aim of discussing specific options for the certification of the "Comprehensive Operations Planning Course", which could similarly to earlier certified course "Introduction to the Planning of Joint Operations" provide education of NATO members and Partners. In this way, we also try to contribute to the solution of the current challenges of NATO.