Humanitarian Action

The United Nations’ Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda has emerged over the past decade and a half as a significant cross-cutting thematic program for achieving global peace and security.

The National Action Plan sets out what Australia will do, at home and overseas, to integrate a gender perspective into its peace and security efforts, protect women and girls’ human rights, and promote their participation in conflict prevention, management and resolution. ACMC has a role in the design and implementation of this plan.

In August 2014, the United Nations (UN) Security Council declared the Ebola virus outbreak in the West African subregion a ‘threat to international peace and security’. The UN’s request for assistance from member states resulted in the mobilisation of technical expertise, medical capacity, humanitarian assistance, and military and civil defence assets.

Grounded in the experience of five highly disaster-exposed countries: Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Tonga and Vanuatu, this Pacific Edition maps key civil-military coordination mechanisms at regional and national levels.

The Regional Consultative Group (RCG) on Humanitarian Civil-Military Coordination (CMCoord) for Asia and the Pacific is a key forum for supporting and elevating coordination, building relationships, and sharing learning to enhance and strengthen emergency response.

Following on from the ACMC Australian Guidelines for the Protection of Civilians (2015) this handbook aims to provide the ‘what’, the ‘why’ and the ‘how’ of protecting civilians in violent contexts and is intended for people working at the operational level including government, NGOs, UN and other organisations.

The purpose of this report is to identify the lessons learned and emerging best practices of UN Member States committed to the implementation of this agenda through National Action Plans (NAPs).