Military, Civil Defence and Civil Protection Assets (MCDA) may be requested through the Civil Military and Coordination Section (CMCS) in the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) by a United Nations Agency (UNHCR, UNICEF, WFP, WHO, etc.), a non-governmental organization (NGO), or the Government of an affected country when all other sources have proved to be insufficient, or exhausted, or unavailable.

MCDA can consist of either personnel and equipment or personnel only. MCDA structures (usually referred to as service modules) are intended to respond rapidly in a fully self-contained and highly mobile fashion in order to provide support to a full range of relief services.

The objective of the CMCS is to provide timely, sufficient, and cost-effective support to concerned humanitarian agencies as and when requested, and to ensure the most effective use of MCDA in support of all types of humanitarian operations where their use is appropriate.

The following procedure is applied:

• Requests coming to the CMCS are registered, verified and documented.
• Potential providers of requested MCDA are identified through the MCDA Register maintained by the CMCS.
• Details of a request are entered in the CMCS Database of Requests.
• A formal request for specific MCDA is issued in standard format and sent to all identified potential providers within 2-3 hours of its receipt by the CMCS.
• CMCS follows up the formal request for MCDA by direct contacts with release authorities and providing organisations.
• CMCS clarifies technical and financial details of offer(s) for MCDA with provider(s) and identifies eventual.
• Offer for MCDA with all details and contact data is communicated to the requester for further action.
• CMCS assists in establishing contacts among the MCDA provider, team and requester.
• CMCS monitors use of the deployed MCDA and provides assistance to implementing partners, as required.
• When needs are satisfied or no longer exist, a termination or cancellation message is sent to all addressees of the request concerned.
• Every case of MCDA deployment through the CMCS is studied and discussed; lessons learned are noted for future operations.
• Statistical data on MCDA requests is printed from the database and together with other information is disseminated by e-mail, fax and letters, and is posted in the Internet.

It must be remembered, when lodging a request for MCDA, that 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's owner decision on a case-by-case basis.