An Cosantóir

OCHA COMES TO THE DFTC |9 By Wesley Bourke Photos by A/M Neville Coughlan T his autumn the United Nations Training School Ireland (UNSTI), in conjunction with the Dept. of Foreign Affairs Irish Aid, ran a UN FRST (Field Readiness Stand-by Training) course. The course was run for 24 students from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), and it was the first time such training had taken place in Ireland. These courses are open to every member of the OCHA HQ staff at Geneva, New York and the various OCHA regional offices worldwide, and staffers are actively encouraged to take the course on a regular basis. OCHA may not be a term familiar to many in the Defence Forces but it is part of the UN Secretariat responsible for bringing together humanitarian actors to ensure a coherent response to emergencies. "It is taking care of the civilian side of the house," said UNSTI instructor Capt Conor Galvin. "It co-ordinates civilian UN agencies and NGOs in humanitarian, conflict, and post-conflict environments." OCHA also ensures there is a framework within which each actor can contribute to the overall response effort. OCHA's mission is to mobilise and coordinate effective and principled humanitarian action in partnership with national and international actors in order to alleviate human suffering in disasters and emergencies; advocate the rights of people in need; promote preparedness and prevention; and facilitate sustainable solutions. The students came from all around the world: Canada, Chad, Columbia, Ethiopia, France, Sri Lanka, and Sweden just to name a few. Of the students on the course, 22 work directly for the UN and two were from the Irish Rapid Response Corps. Irish Aid is responsible for the Rapid Response Initiative, part of which includes maintaining a roster of people, the Rapid Response Corps, who can be deployed with UN agencies for six months to address a humanitarian crisis. They might be engineers, doctors, CimCord (civilian military co-ordination) officers, gender officers, child protection officers, logistics officers, protection officers, humanitarian affairs officers: a whole range profiles. "At any one time we would have 15-20 people on deployment with the UN worldwide," we were told by the director of the Rapid Response Corps, Arthur Hendrick. "Courses like this are designed to train these personnel for any potential scenario they might meet overseas." Scenarios were set up around the DFTC to test the students in a wide range of situations. These included the practise of UN procedures in a crisis situation, conducting checkpoints, dealing with road traffic accidents, and navigation and communication exercises using Motorola and BGAN satellite phones. www.military.ie the defence forces magazine

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