Humanitarian civil-military coordination is multi-faceted and evolving. The work ranges from on-site coordination of foreign military assets (FMA) in disaster relief, to access negotiation in conflict.
Since the international disaster response community first created the United Nations Humanitarian Civil-Military Coordination (UN- CMCoord) function, it has adapted to the changing environment. CMCoord traditionally coordinated the deployment of foreign Military and Civil Defence Assets (MCDA) in disaster response.
Governments increasingly deploy military forces as part of their international assistance to a natural disaster response. In addition, national armed forces are often relied upon as first responders in- country.
With multidimensional and integrated peace operations, CMCoord became an important interface between the humanitarian community and military components of UN and regional peacekeeping operations.