Humanitarian Civil-Military Coordination (UN-CMCoord) Operational Guidance for Appropriate Interaction with Armed Actors in the Context of the COVID-19 Response v1.0

This Operational Guidance from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) Civil-Military Coordination Service complements country-specific guidance where it exists and considers lessons observed from the SARS outbreak in 2002-2003 and the Ebola outbreak of 2014, amongst others. This operational guidance will be continuously updated as the situation evolves.

Armed actors are or will likely be involved in an affected government’s response to COVID-19 in a number of ways. This operational guidance provides practical approaches to navigating
humanitarian operating environments where:

a. domestic armed actors are responding to COVID-19 as part of the government’s efforts,

b. where peacekeeping forces and/or foreign armed actors (military and/or police) may possess unique capacity to support humanitarian requirements,

c. combinations of the above.