Regional Consultative Group (RCG) on Humanitarian Civil-Military Coordination for Asia and the Pacific: Eighth Session Summary Report

RCG Background

The Asia-Pacific Conferences on Military Assistance to Disaster Relief Operations (APC-MADRO) took place over a five-year period (2005-2010) and were organised with the aim of developing collaborative guidelines to assist the planning of foreign military assistance (FMA) in support of disaster response operations in the Asia-Pacific region. At the end of this process in 2010, the Asia-Pacific Regional Guidelines for the Use of Foreign Military Assets in Natural Disaster Response Operations (APC-MADRO Guidelines) were finalized and endorsed.

Building upon the outcomes of the Asia-Pacific Conferences and related guidelines, a multi-stakeholder Regional Consultative Group (RCG) on Humanitarian Civil-Military Coordination for Asia and the Pacific was formed in 2014 to act as a regional forum and bring together the humanitarian sector, including grass-root organizations, with government officials and military actors involved in disaster response preparedness planning and disaster response in the region. As outlined in the Terms of Reference, the RCG was formed to:

• discuss response preparedness planning, with a focus on coordination of operational planning between civilian and military actors

• facilitate exchange of information and innovative ideas to enable well-coordinated and needs-based effective disaster response to a broad range of humanitarian emergency operations

• strengthen linkages with other relevant platforms with an emphasis on the relationship with Regional Organizations and the Global Consultative Group on Humanitarian Civil-Military Coordination

The chairmanship of the RCG is rotated among Member States on an annual basis. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which posed several challenges for the RCG, the Government of Nepal served as the RCG Chair in both 2020 and 2021 while, in 2022, the RCG Co-Secretariat took over the Chairmanship.