Interagency and Civil-Military Coordination: Lessons From a Survey of Afghanistan and Liberia
Authors
Lara Olson
Hrach Gregorian
Abstract
Existing field coordination processes commonly have two main outcomes: they result in mere “information sharing” and have no real coordination impact; conversely, they produce a kind of forced, “false coherence”, referring to superficial changes in language and formal adherence to new frameworks, driven by the agenda of the actor with the most power and resources. Some key factors contributing to this problem; coordination processes often assume agreement among actors on strategies and don’t provide opportunities for inclusive and meaningful multi-stakeholder dialogue; power asymmetries block real dialogue; funding relationships and competition limit the ability of existing coordination processes to achieve some level of common intent; groups hold different notions of the purpose of coordination in the first place, ranging widely from greater centralized control, to democratic consensus-building, to credible, reliable information exchange. However, in working “side by side” in such settings and preserving their autonomous mandates and roles, civilian and military agencies can still improve the way their efforts link up and support the bigger peace.
Author Biographies
Lara Olson
Lara Olson is an Associate at the Centre for Military and Strategic Studies and Co-director of the Peacebuilding, Development and Security Program at CMSS. She has extensive experience on practical approaches to improving the effectiveness of NGO humanitarian, development and peacebuilding efforts in conflict areas. Since the mid-1990s she has worked as an aid practitioner and with innovative international action-research projects to improve aid outcomes in areas of conflict, including directing the research phase of the ongoing Reflecting on Peace Practice project from 1999-2003 and conducting trainings and research on conflict sensitive approaches. Fluent in Russian, she has worked in the former Soviet Union with field-based NGOs on humanitarian, development and peacebuilding programming in areas of armed conflict in the Caucasus, and in Central Asia.
Hrach Gregorian
Dr. Hrach Gregorian is President of the Institute of World Affairs a non-governmental organization specializing in international conflict management and post-conflict peacebuilding. Gregorian's field experience in conflict management and peace-building has taken him to over twenty countries. He regularly provides professional skills training seminars and workshops for UN agency and mission staff, U.S. and Latin American military personnel, senior civilian officials, and academic and corporate leaders in the U.S. and throughout the world. He is a faculty member of the School of International Service, the American University, Washington, D.C.; Associate Professor, Graduate Program in Conflict Management, Royal Roads University, Victoria, Canada; and Adjunct Professor, Faculty of Social Sciences and Co-director, Peacebuilding, Development and Security Program, Centre for Military and Security Studies, University of Calgary, Alberta.
