Civil-Military Coordination and UN Peacebuilding Operations

Abstract

Literature dealing with civil-military coordination (CIMIC) has mostly been concerned with the relationship between humanitarian actors and their military counterparts. In the United Nations (UN) peace operations context, however, the humanitarian-military interface is only one of several civil-military relationships. This paper is concerned with the question whether a different set of principles and guidelines is required for civil-military coordination in UN peace operations. The question is relevant because almost all the UN principles and guidelines for civil-military coordination have been drafted for the humanitarian-military interface, and most have been generated by the humanitarian community from a humanitarian perspective. In contrast, most contemporary UN peace operations are mandated to manage * Cedric de Coning is a Research Fellow at ACCORD where he is an advisor to the Training for Peace in Africa and the African Civil-Military Coordination programmes. He is a DPhil student with the Department of Political Science at the University of Stellenbosch.