“Coordination between civilian and military actors is essential during an emergency response. The increasing number and scale of humanitarian emergencies, in both natural disaster and conflict settings, has led to more situations where military forces and civilian relief agencies are operating in the same environment.”
John Holmes, Emergency Relief Coordinator and
United Nations Under-Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs
What is Humanitarian Civil-Military Coordination (UN-CMCoord)?
United Nations Humanitarian Civil-Military Coordination (UN-CMCoord) is the essential dialogue and interaction between civilian and military actors in humanitarian emergencies that is necessary to protect and promote humanitarian principles, avoid competition, minimize inconsistency, and when appropriate pursue common goals. Basic strategies range from coexistence to cooperation. Coordination is a shared responsibility facilitated by liaison and common training. Key elements include planning, information sharing and task division.
The focal point for UN-CMCoord in the United Nations System is the Civil-Military Coordination Section (CMCS) of OCHA. Based in Geneva, the Section provides the international community with a range of services, including development and facilitation of guidelines and other related documents, the UN-CMCoord training programme, support to military exercises, UN-CMCoord officers deployment and a range of other related operational and field support activities.
CMCS provides leadership to the international humanitarian community on civil-military coordination in order to enable, facilitate and strengthen humanitarian assistance and disaster response operations through appropriate and needs-based use of Military and Civil Defence Assets (MCDA).
CMCS' mission as the UN focal point for civil-military coordination in humanitarian assistance activities is to ensure the effective use of Military and Civil Defence Assets (MCDA) in disaster relief and humanitarian assistance operations, establish civil-military coordination mechanisms to facilitate interaction and cooperation and uphold humanitarian principles in support of Humanitarian Coordinators (HC) and OCHA’s mandate.
CMCS plans, mobilizes and coordinates UN-CMCoord emergency response tools in support of Humanitarian Coordinators and humanitarian assistance operations, enhanced by the promotion of UN-CMCoord guidelines, deployment of skilled civil-military coordination officers and the implementation of the CMCS training and exercise programmes. CMCS provides a range of services tailored to meet the needs of a wide and diverse audience, ranging from training to policy formulation and advocacy to capacity building. [See Civil-Military related sites]
Operations and Field Support
One of CMCS’ primary functions is to support UN-CMCoord activities in the field. These may take the more traditional form of a UN-CMCoord officer posting in an OCHA office or in an Integrated Mission arrangement, or it may be the deployment of UN-CMCoord capacity in response to sudden onset humanitarian emergencies.
The CMCS role is to assist in planning, identifying and deploying appropriately trained personnel, conducting pre-deployment briefings, ensuring required equipment is available, disseminating and filing UN-CMCoord reports, working to resolve issues that arise and supporting the deployed officers
CMCS projects UN-CMCoord capabilities in the field using the UN-CMCoord Officer Deployment Plan. The UN-CMCoord Officer Deployment Plan is a project to provide more predictable and sustainable civil-military coordination in humanitarian emergency response operations. This is accomplished using a phased deployment process. CMCS staff members usually provide the initial response capacity for an emergency. Within weeks CMCS facilitates the deployment of UN-CMCoord officers utilizing its roster of highly qualified personnel who have completed the UN-CMCoord Staff Course. Normally the duration of this phase does not exceed six months. If UN-CMCoord expertise is required after this period, then CMCS assists with the recruitment process for fixed term contract personnel. [Download Generic profile and functions of UN-CMCoord Officers] [UN-CMCoord Lessons Observed Database]
Gender Action plan for Civil-Military Coordination
The aim of the action plan is to lead to a more coherent approach to gender balanced training courses, as well as provide for equal access of men and women to all training events. It should guide the UN-CMCoord training and education programme with regard to the design, invitation strategies, execution and evaluation of training courses. It should also inspire other training institutions, in particular military organizations, to adopt a more coherent approach to gender issues.
More than two hundred and fifty graduates of the United Nations Civil-Military Coordination (UN-CMCoord) Training Programme, along with the Civil-Military Coordination Section have developed this action plan. All training managers are committed to adhere to the goals and objectives determined in the plan. [Download the UN-CMCoord Training Programme Gender Action Plan]
Military and Civil Defence Assets
The Register of Military, Civil Defence and Civil Protection Assets (MCDA Register) contains data on the military, and/or civil defence, and/or civil protection expertise, capacities and range of services which may be offered in case of emergency by Member States and sectorial multinational organizations for international humanitarian disaster relief operations under the following conditions:
Inclusion of the assets in the MCDA Register does not mean that they are automatically available for international humanitarian assistance; it serves as an indication only that they may be made available subject to the asset owner's decision on a case-by-case basis;
The assets can be made available through the United Nations;
The assets are provided on a non-profit basis.
For each asset provider MCDA Register contains information on such key items as the authority responsible for the release of the assets for international assistance, 24-hour contact points, service modules available and their specifications, modalities of cooperation with the UN, other organizations and disaster affected countries.
MCDA may be requested through the Civil Military Coordination Section (CMCS) in the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) by a United Nations Agency or the Government of an affected country (usually through the UN Resident/Humanitarian Coordinator) when all other sources have proved to be insufficient, exhausted, or unavailable.
The MCDA Register constitutes an integral part of the Central Register of Disaster Management Capacities.
Contact Us:
Civil-Military Coordination Section, Emergency Services Branch
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)
CMCS welcomes applications from students who wish to engage in an internship with our section. Internships are open to students pursuing a masters degree or the equivalent and are available on a full-time basis for an initial period of 3 months. If you are interested in applying, we would ask you to make initial contact with us directly by email (cmcs@un.org) and subsequently go through the internship procedure that is in place for United Nations Geneva.