Civil Military Coordination in Humanitarian Emergencies

The scale of the Indian Ocean Earthquake and Tsunami and the South Asia Earthquake disasters led to an unprecedented level of assistance being provided by national and international militaries to the humanitarian community. This assistance was central to the overall relief efforts in quickly accessing hard-to-reach areas and filling many technical gaps that civilian capabilities were unable to immediately provide.

In most humanitarian emergencies (complex and natural) the UN agencies and the members of the international humanitarian community responding to the disaster will encounter armed actors. Now, more than ever before, there are likely to be multiple types of forces, including foreign, international or multinational forces, and when such actors are present there are also likely to be significant coordination challenges.

The ROAP Civil Military Coordination (CMCoord) Unit, in close cooperation with UN OCHA’s Civil Military Coordination Section (CMCS), works with humanitarian colleagues, government officials, donors, national militaries and regional and international military forums to support the development of the essential dialogue and interaction between civilian and military actors (prior to and) in humanitarian emergencies that is necessary to protect and promote humanitarian principles, minimize inconsistency, avoid competition, and when appropriate pursue common goals.

In order to achieve this, a number of key activities are undertaken by the ROAP Civil Military Coordination (CMCoord) Unit:

• Advocacy for the promulgation of UN-CMCoord concepts, principles and activities and dissemination of UN-CMCoord guidelines.
• Interaction with and training of national and international military organisations and personnel responding to humanitarian emergencies.
• Coordination and training of UN agencies, governments, donors and NGOs to ensure a common approach when dealing with military actors involved in humanitarian response efforts.
• Support for the development of key regional civil military coordination policies, papers and guidelines, such as the ASEAN SASOPs and ARF SOPs.

Emergency Response

The ROAP CMCoord Officer also regularly undertakes field missions, usually at short notice, in response to humanitarian emergencies. Specific tasks fulfilled on such missions can include, but are not limited to:

• Acting as advisor to the HC/RC and UNCT on all UN-CMCoord related issues.
• Supporting the establishment of, and sustaining, dialogue with military forces.
• Establishing a mechanism for the coordination of the UN humanitarian interaction with military forces and other armed actors.
• Monitoring of assistance activities undertaken by the military forces.
• Assisting in the development and dissemination of guidelines for the humanitarian community’s interaction with military forces and armed actors.
• Assisting in the negotiation of issues in critical areas of coordination.