Being new in a civil-military coordination role, an experienced practitioner, or a leader in this field, we all need a reliable operational picture to make informed decisions. An elaborate assessment process, together with critical thinking, help us to reach common ground among humanitarian and peace & security actors. Analysis, as a continuous process, belongs to our day-to-day work.

There are many tools available within the humanitarian community and beyond for analytical purposes. Besides the UN-CMCoord assessment process, we also explore Peacekeeping Intelligence (PKI). Although PKI focuses on different objectives, the tools and procedures are similar to the humanitarian community, for instance, stakeholder mapping. The PKI Handbook is one resource we discuss in this module.

Here are a few quotes from our graduates.

This week was intense and time-consuming, but this course keeps getting better and better! I particularly liked the individual assignment and much appreciated S.'s comments on it. I wish we had time to discuss and exchange more in depth - definitely made me think a bit more about my case. More generally, I take away than CMCoord assessments are a huge task, and any CMCoord Officer charged with this must be happy to be able to base him/herself on existing (and up-to-date) information in-country (conflict analysis, CCA, etc.).

For me, I continue to be struck by the critical importance of being deliberate and perhaps slower than in rapid onset disaster response in at least the planning phase. I think while this is perhaps different to humanitarian (disaster anyway) response, it is informed still by the same rationale - of Doing No Harm (among other things).

This course however is distinct from the many other (purely) humanitarian trainings I've done in that it details how our biases can lead to harm and provides potential solutions through heuristics. For sure I will be using what I have learned - and not just when dealing with CMC issues.

The exchanges have allowed me to challenge my own perceptions and bias towards military actors and learning more about the internal processes for assessment, selection and decision making. Despite our different mandates and approches, our procedures are very similar in essence and our complementarity and collaboration would enable better access to address humanitarian needs of affected communities.

I agree with my fellow colleagues that this week the grey matter was truly tested as the concepts of biases and heuristics needed deep reflection. Although not new to the subject matter discussed, it was indeed a refresher and a revelation to see the issues related to biases from a different perspective after the peer and main group discussions. Even though the systematic and structured mechanism of the 5 steps of the UN-CMCoord Assessment Process provides a guided approach, it is evident that the tool has to be used as suited to the humanitarian emergency context. Discussing the unique characteristics of each group of actors was very valuable as it assisted me to understand how humanitarians see themselves which very different from government and military actors. Thoroughly enjoyed and learnt new knowledge this week.