Civilian-Military Humanitarian Coordination
Workshops and Symposia
Civilian-Military Humanitarian Response Workshop
CHRHS and HRP have organized four Civilian-Military Humanitarian Response Workshops, each attended by nearly 100 military and humanitarian leaders, designed to enhance the collective humanitarian response capacity of civilian and military actors by supporting a community of practice, identifying key opportunities for professional education and training, and developing a comprehensive research agenda focused on global humanitarian civil-military coordination.
Traditionally a two-day workshop held at the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, Brown University, the workshop explores current and future challenges in civilian-military humanitarian responses, including natural disasters, complex emergencies, and routine humanitarian engagements. The event aims to improve civilian-military humanitarian responses by meeting the following four objectives:
- Enhance the response capacity of UN OCHA, USAID OFDA, humanitarian NGOs, Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, international militaries, and other key organizations through supporting a Community of Practice in civilian-military issues and promoting information sharing that can inform policy and processes during humanitarian crises.
- Expand and strengthen a network of practitioners, academics, and leaders who routinely work civilian-military engagement in the humanitarian space.
- Continue to highlight key opportunities for professional education, training, and development for key decision makers to identify the best practices associated with overcoming cultural, policy, technical, and legal challenges for coordination and information sharing.
- Develop and refine a comprehensive research agenda focused on civilian-military coordination considering international approaches to effecting solutions.
Research Symposium on Civilian-Military Humanitarian Coordination
On September 17, 2020, CHRHS and HRP hosted the first ever Research Symposium on Civilian-Military Humanitarian Coordination, featuring four presentations of recently completed original research studies from a variety of disciplines, from anthropology to law and political science to public health. The research questions covered in these studies were selected by the working groups at the 2018 Civilian-Military Humanitarian Response Workshop after being identified as some of the most pressing and important topics in the realm of civilian-military coordination during humanitarian emergencies. In addition to the original research presentations, also presented was the summary findings of our recently completed UN OCHA Civil-Military Coordination Service (CMCS) Strategic Reassessment, commissioned by CHRHS at Brown University at the request of UN OCHA.