Ukraine: Civil-Military Coordination & Humanitarian Notification System (HNS)

Civil-Military Coordination

UN Civil-Military Coordination is the essential dialogue and interaction between civilian and military actors in humanitarian emergencies that is necessary to protect and promote humanitarian principles, avoid competition, minimize inconsistency, and when appropriate, pursue common goals. Basic strategies range from co-existence to cooperation. Coordination is a shared responsibility facilitated by liaison and common training.

In other terms, UN-CMCoord is a framework that enhances a broad understanding of humanitarian action and guides political and military actors on how best to support that action. It helps to develop context-specific policy based on internationally agreed guidelines, and it establishes humanitarian civil-military coordination structures, ensuring staff members are trained to make that coordination work.

UN-CMCoord is particularly essential in complex emergencies / high-risk environments in order to facilitate humanitarian access, the protection of civilians, and the security of humanitarian aid workers.

Humanitarian Notification System (HNS)

The Humanitarian Notification System (HNS) was established in 2015 at the request of the humanitarian community in Ukraine to inform the parties to the conflict of humanitarian movements, overland and waterborne, and static humanitarian sites for parties to the conflict to factor this information into any kinetic military operations planning in view to avoid harm to civilians and civilian objects by attacks and incidental effects of attacks under International Humanitarian Law (IHL)1. Independent of any humanitarian notification system, all parties to the armed conflict are obliged under IHL not to direct attacks against civilians and civilian objects, including humanitarian staff, facilities, and assets, as well as civilian infrastructure that is indispensable for the survival of the civilian population.Humanitarian Notification System (HNS) online portal: https://unocha.my.site.com/hnsukraine/s/

Humanitarian Notification System (HNS) E-mail: ocha.ukraine.notifications@un.org