Australia

Australian Civil-Military Centre.

The Australian Civil-Military Centre (ACMC) was established by the Australian Government to support the development of national civil-military capabilities to prevent, prepare for and respond more effectively to conflicts and disasters overseas. It contributes to international peace and security through lessons analysis, outreach, education, research, exercises and other activities that assist government and non-government organizations to improve civil-military cooperation.

Working with Government agencies, the United Nations and other partners, the Centre focuses on improving civil-military education and training, building capacity through multi-agency exercises and developing civil-military doctrine and guiding principles. The Centre generates knowledge through concept development, it identifies, exercises and tests best-practice responses to operational lessons and it shares its civil-military knowledge to develop effective Australian civil-military capability for conflict prevention and disaster management overseas. The Centre is a whole-of-government initiative, and resides within the Department of Defence.

In 2010, the Centre hosted the Challenges Annual Forum addressing ‘Challenges of Protecting Civilians in Multidimensional Peace Operations’. The ACMC co-chaired a working group in the development of the Challenges Forum study ‘Considerations for Mission Leadership in United Nations Peacekeeping Operations’, and contributed with a project manager for the work strand on ‘Impact Assessment and Evaluation’ for the present study. In 2002, the then Australian Partner Organization, the Asia-Pacific Centre for Military Law hosted a Challenges seminar on ‘The Rule of Law on Peace Operations’ at the University of Melbourne.