As U.S. Government agencies, especially the military, have become more involved in complex humanitarian emergencies, the need to interact with NGOs has grown. Operation Provide Comfort, the 1991 operation to provide humanitarian relief to Kurds in northern Iraq, was a watershed in NGO/Interagency cooperation. It marked the first time that government agencies, NGOs and the military, despite different methods and motivations, worked so closely together in pursuit of a common goal. Since the experience in Iraq, there have been complex humanitarian emergency responses in Liberia, Somalia, Haiti, Rwanda, Zaire, and Bosnia. NGOs, many of which have traditionally been involved in long-term development work, are placing increased emphasis on emergency relief, especially in complex humanitarian emergencies. For example, during the Kurdish crisis in 1991, 28 NGOs were involved in providing humanitarian aid. In Somalia, the number grew to 78. In Rwanda, 170 NGOs were involved, while in Haiti, over 400 NGOs--including local or indigenous organizations--were on the ground when the U.S. troops landed. In the ongoing conflict in Bosnia, the workshop participants estimated that more than 400 NGOs--large and small, international and indigenous--are active. As the scope, frequency, and size of complex humanitarian emergencies increase, the body of knowledge on how to make these operations successful has increased as well. The following discussion highlights those areas of cooperation where significant gains were reported by workshop participants.
Workshop participants considered Haiti's Operation Uphold Democracy a model of effective planning. The Haiti operation marked the first time the U.S. Government organized to develop an interagency political-military plan of operations prior to undertaking a crisis response.9 OFDA, and through it, the NGO community, was brought into the Government's and the military's planning process at a relatively early stage. The interagency political-military planning effort reflected lessons learned in previous disaster responses, beginning with Operation Provide Comfort in northern Iraq. While this represents considerable progress in interagency coordination, as one participant observed, "it was a long time coming!"
The experiences in Iraq, Somalia, Haiti, and Rwanda have proven that closer coordination among NGOs and the military can more effectively serve the goal of delivering humanitarian assistance in complex humanitarian emergencies. A variety of organizations now serve as coordinating mechanisms between government/international organization representatives, the military, and NGOs, among NGOs themselves, and between NGOs and the military. Most of these organizations originated from the experiences of Operation Provide Comfort, and were later built upon in the early stages of humanitarian relief to Somalia ( Operation Provide Relief ).
Figure 3 depicts the general pattern of coordination among the UN agencies, donor agencies, NGOs, and the military that has evolved in recent experience. The UN is generally the principal agency coordinating the international community's response, and as such assumes a preeminent role in integrating the activities of different donors, NGOs working in-country, the UN's own agencies and other donors, and the military supporting the operation. A variety of structures have evolved to facilitate coordination across these national, organizational, and cultural boundaries. They may have different names and may be more or less physically separate depending on the operation, but they fulfill the essential task of providing a coordination venue for donors, NGOs, and the UN on the one hand, and the military and the various civilian agencies on the other.
In Figure 3, the mechanism for coordinating between "official" entities (national governments and UN agencies) and the NGO community is the Humanitarian Operations Center (HOC), which first appeared in Somalia. The same function was performed by the On-Site Operations Coordination Center (OSOCC) in Rwanda and a Humanitarian Affairs Center (HAC) in Haiti. In these past operations, the HOC/OSOCC organizations have been run by the relief operation's Humanitarian Coordinators (civilian UN staff members representing the designated lead agency), and they have coordinated the entire relief effort. As an interface coordinating the requirements of the host nations, NGOs, military, government agencies, UN agencies, and international organizations, HOC/OSOCC functions have included:
As emergency responses have become more frequent and more complex, the NGO community has increasingly found it necessary to coordinate among itself and to provide a point of contact or points of contact to official entities. NGOs first organized their own intracommunity coordination center in northern Iraq. Confronted with overwhelming difficulties and absent strong international organization leadership, coordination and communication among the usually independent NGOs became a necessity. The NGO Coordinating Committee for Northern Iraq (NCCNI) was established, and subsequently became the prime interface for NGOs with the official community and the military.
The Civil Military Operations Center (CMOC) also had its origins in Operation Provide Comfort. After an initial reluctance to work together and overcoming "cultural" biases, the NGO and military communities began to recognize the comparative advantages offered by the other, and an informal, amorphous relationship emerged in which "information was the currency of exchange." 10 Through coordination, the military gained efficiency and economy of effort from the NGOs, and the NGOs received logistical support, security, and information from the military and from other NGOs. In Operation Restore Hope, a CMOC was collocated with the UN's HOC, and worked very well.11
Since Operations Provide Comfort and Provide Relief, the CMOC concept--providing a vehicle for the military and NGO community to interface--has been developed into doctrine by the U.S. military. A CMOC provides the primary interface between U.S. military forces and the various agencies involved in a humanitarian relief operation. It is a military organization that functions to: (1) monitor military support throughout the area of operations, and (2) respond to UN, NGO, and IO logistic, security, and/or technical support requirements as tasked to the military in the mission/mandate for each specific operation.
Although they share many characteristics, each humanitarian relief operation is unique, and the CMOC structure will be tailored for each situation. Currently, multinational activities supporting Operation Joint Endeavor in Bosnia work through CIMIC Centers--Civil-Military Cooperation Centers--to accomplish the same type of objectives as the U.S.-developed CMOC. Specific CMOC/CIMIC Center functions may include:
The CMOC also serves as the military representation in the HOC/OSOCC. In this capacity, the CMOC provides liaison and coordination between the military capabilities and the needs of the relief agencies, validates NGO requests for military assistance to the military hierarchy, and provides a conduit for information flow - all serving to further consensus building for the mission. NGO workshop participants mentioned certain services coordinated by the CMOC as particularly useful, including:
In sum, this requirement was of greatest importance when the response to the crisis was multinational or was sponsored under a UN mandate but was important in U.S.-only operations like Haiti, as well. CMOCs have been viewed by both the military and NGO communities as "helpful in furthering operational level coordination and communication." Workshop participants from the NGO community also emphasized the importance of the above organizations operating "outside the wire" (the military security perimeter), and highlighted the critical role that OFDA has played in facilitating communications both between NGOs and the U.S. military.
Finally, while the CMOC provides the vehicle for the military to support NGO and government agency responses to a complex humanitarian emergency, all workshop participants emphasized that mission success or failure depends on the character of the political as well as the military commitment to the enterprise. Successful resolution of the crisis requires collaboration across the political and military spectrum.
All the workshop participants recognized the important role of communication between NGOs, Government agencies, and the military during complex humanitarian emergencies, particularly the importance of a liaison or designated point of contact within the communities. NGO participants expressed high praise for OFDA and its role in disaster relief. They see OFDA as critical to effective communication between NGOs and the U.S. Government, as well as among NGOs themselves. One military participant, having experienced great frustration with the difficulty of distributing information to the myriad of NGOs, found that InterAction--a loose coalition of more than 150 NGOs engaged in humanitarian efforts around the world--was an "effective conduit for funneling information to the appropriate NGOs." OFDA has established an umbrella agreement with InterAction to include information sharing. OFDA also has a representative assigned to the CINCPAC (Commander-in-Chief Pacific) staff who, according to one participant, has made a significant contribution by helping the military understand the idiosyncrasies of interactions with both U.S. and non-U.S. NGOs. Several NGOs supported the notion that OFDA be designated as the official U.S. Government point of contact with the NGO community. On the international level, the Geneva-based International Committee of Voluntary Organizations (ICVO) provides coordination among NGOs on a global basis.
Workshop participants identified several initiatives in the training area that have helped foster better relations between NGOs and U.S. Government civilian and military agencies. Both types of organizations must deal with complications created by personnel changes and the need to keep training requirements current. Several participants cited the Army's Joint Readiness Training Center at Ft. Polk, Georgia, which conducts training exercises in OOTW for the forces. As part of this training, the Center incorporates information about working with the NGO community into its program. In addition, the Center has included members of the NGO community in its field exercises. This ongoing effort was established approximately 5 years ago.
The American Red Cross has been active in training with the military for years, building on the special relationship that it maintains with the U.S. armed forces. The Red Cross has signed Statements of Understanding with both the Department of Defense and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). These agreements delineate each organization's responsibilities in disaster preparedness planning and in operations in the event of a national emergency or disaster. They also outline areas of mutual support and cooperation, and pave the way for similar cooperative agreements in the future. Currently, the Red Cross is conducting a course in collaboration with the University of Hawaii, Tripler Army Medical Center on behalf of the U.S. Pacific Command. This course addresses international disaster management and humanitarian assistance requiring civil-military operations. On a global scale, the ICRC works with OFDA on developing training programs.