Pacific Island Countries Humanitarian Civil-Military Coordination Training

Suva, Fiji 20 November 2016

When an emergency or natural disaster creates humanitarian needs, many countries will make available their military civil defence assets to assist affected Governments. In the Pacific, military has played an important support role in responding to natural disasters and meet the key immediate needs of affected communities, in partnership with national Governments and humanitarian actors.

Significant progress has been made by Member States in the Pacific in developing national disaster preparedness and response capacity. National authorities have increasingly assumed a central role in leading emergency preparedness and response activities, with regional and international humanitarian actors playing a supportive function only when national authorities have been overwhelmed and either welcome, accept or seek international support.

“When the military are involved in disaster response, it is essential that they operate in the same space as civilian actors and deploy their assets in full respect of the civilian character of humanitarian assistance. It is for this reason that United Nations Humanitarian Civil-Military Coordination (UN-CMCoord) facilitates dialogue and interaction between civilian and military actors”, says Sune Gudnitz, Head of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA), Regional Office for the Pacific (ROP).

From 20 to 25 November, ROP together with UNOCHA Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific, and UNOCHA Geneva will host the United Nations Humanitarian Civil-Military Coordination (UN-CMCoord) Course for the Pacific in Nadi, Fiji. The event will be attended by Governments, humanitarian actors as well as representatives of military and uniformed forces from across the Pacific.

“Given the role that the military will play in any large-scale disaster response in the region, coordination and coherence in the civil-military coordination efforts is essential to respond to requests for the use of foreign military assets coming from national authorities and humanitarian actors. This training will provide an opportunity to strengthen the humanitarian civil military coordination community of practice in the Pacific”, says Sune Gudnitz, Head of UNOCHA ROP.

The 2016 training for the Pacific aims to promote appropriate and effective humanitarian civil-military coordination in humanitarian emergencies through strengthened knowledge and understanding of global UN-CMCoord standards and principles.

UNOCHA ROP is based in Suva and serves 14 Pacific Island countries and territories.
For more information about humanitarian civil military coordination and the role of UNOCHA visit: http://www.unocha.org/what-we-do/coordination-tools/UN-CMCoord/overview

For further information, please contact:

Mr. Sevuloni R. Ratu | Humanitarian Affairs Officer/Public Information | UNOCHA Regional Office for the Pacific Tel: +679 3316760 | Mob: +679 9990021 | Email: ratu@un.org Press releases are available at www.unocha.org/rop or www.reliefweb.int.
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