Military and Civilian Information Sharing and Best Practices - Improving the Environmental and Social Performance of Military and Civilian Actors Operating in the Same Area
Publisher: FOI
Author(s): Annica Waleij, Per Wikberg, Lukas Liljedahl, Zacharias Tjäder, Louise Simonsson, and Birgitta Liljedahl
Date: 2016
Topics: Peace and Security Operations
Sweden, like many NATO partnership for peace (PfP) and NATO nations, is determined to more closely link foreign policies concerning development, security and defence. The assumptions is that prospects of peace, security, democracy and development in the world, will consequently improve. "Comprehensive approach" and "Civilian and military cooperation" are "buzz words" that are promoted. In reality too little effective coordination takes place and information tends to be shared sparsely and rarely systematically. In addition, there is often an aggregate social and environmental footprint caused, when refugees, local population, humanitarian agencies and peacekeepers are situated with base camps and activities at the same place, causing an unsustainable strain on an often fragile environment (e.g. in water scarce region). In 2014 FOI hosted a NATP PfP activity within the framework of NATO's Partnership plan with Sweden (Cycle 2013-2014, SWE-2933.1). The activity was dedicated to address the interface of military and civilian actor's operating in the same mission area, with an emphasis on environmental and resource issues. In order to approach this issue, it was decided that a participatory workshop on best practices of this topic in the context of crises and conflict should be conducted. The objective was to improve information exchange and joint best practices of Military and Civilian actors, including business actors, operating in conflict/crises areas. The goal was to encourage participants to think about the dynamics between various stakeholders in protracted crises and how environmental issues can influence the situation to the better or the worse.