Center for Excellence in Disaster Management and Humanitarian Assistance

The Center for Excellence in Disaster Management and Humanitarian Assistance (COE) is a direct reporting unit to the U.S. Pacific Command (USPACOM) and principal agency to promote disaster preparedness and societal resiliency in the Asia-Pacific region. As part of its mandate, COE facilitates education and training in disaster preparedness, consequence management and health security to develop domestic, foreign and international capability and capacity.

COE partners with a wide variety of national and international governmental, nongovernmental and international organizations to provide relevant education, training, interagency coordination and research. COE’s initiatives include establishing field offices at each US Regional Combatant Command and establishing strategic partnerships with public and private sector entities, such as Business Executives for National Security (BENS), Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), Microsoft, foundations, institutes, and universities.

Mission

 * 1) The Center shall be used to provide and facilitate education, training, and research in civil-military operations, particularly operations that require international disaster management and humanitarian assistance and operations that require coordination between the Department of Defense and other agencies.
 * 2) The Center shall be used to make available high-quality disaster management and humanitarian assistance in response to disasters.
 * 3) The Center shall be used to provide and facilitate education, training, interagency coordination, and research on the following additional matters:
 * 4) Management of the consequences of nuclear, biological, and chemical events.
 * 5) Management of the consequences of terrorism.
 * 6) Appropriate roles for the reserve components in the management of such consequences and in disaster management and humanitarian assistance in response to natural disasters.
 * 7) Meeting requirements for information in connection with regional and global disasters, including the use of advanced communications technology as a virtual library.
 * 8) Tropical medicine, particularly in relation to the medical readiness requirements of the Department of Defense.
 * 9) The Center shall develop a repository of disaster risk indicators for the Asia-Pacific region.
 * 10) The Center shall perform such other missions as the Secretary of Defense may specify.

Vision
A community of nations prepared to respond, collaborate, and manage natural and man-made disasters.

Nations with disaster management plans, prepared to respond to plausible contingencies, and willing to participate in a regional collaborative framework.

Why COE?
A congressional mandate bestowed the institutional title, "Center for Excellence in Disaster Management and Humanitarian Assistance" in 1994. However, most organizations similar to this category are commonly designated as a "Center of Excellence," and the organization informally adopted that title. Nevertheless, it is still widely known as the "Center of Excellence" and the organizational abbreviation remains as "COE."

Directors

 * Lieutenant General, USMC (Ret.), John F. Goodman (17 October 2008 – 24 February 2012)


 * Colonel, USARMY, Philip A. Mead (Interim Director) (24 February 2012 – present)

Establishment
COE was established by an act of the US Congress in 1994. US Code Title 10,182 established that, "the [Secretary of Defense] may operate a Center for Excellence in Disaster Management and Humanitarian Assistance."

Combined Humanitarian Assistance Response Training
Combined Humanitarian Assistance Response Training (CHART) is a five-day introductory course designed to introduce military and civilian personnel to the broad spectrum of humanitarian action within complex emergencies and natural disasters. Course participants will discuss the unique issues in civil-military coordination, public health, humanitarian security strategies, and logistics necessary to support or execute a humanitarian program or operation.

Training Assistance Program
The Center offers a customized education and training packages called the Training Assistance Program or TAP. These training programs are designed to meet specific training objectives of the requesting organization. The host organization helps select the curriculum and develop a draft agenda based on the training objectives and target audience. The Center's staff provides the didactic training, facilitation support and case study management in support of the event. The curriculum can be based on existing Center products such as HELP and CHART, or be developed to meet emerging mission focused requirements for the requesting organization.

United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs Civil Military Coordination Courses
Since 2004 COE has partnered with the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN OCHA) to facilitate OCHA’s Civil Military Coordination (UN-CMCoord) course in the Asia-Pacific Region. In the past COE, has worked with regional partners in Malaysia, Thailand, Philippines, Australia and Indonesia to offer these courses throughout the region.

The UN-CMCoord Course is designed to address the need for coordination between international civilian humanitarian actors, especially UN humanitarian agencies, and international military forces in an international humanitarian emergency. This established UN training plays a critical role in building capacity to facilitate effective coordination in the field by bringing together approximately 30 practitioners from the spectrum of actors sharing operational space during a humanitarian crisis and training them on UN coordination mechanisms and internationally recognized guidelines for civil military coordination.

Health Emergencies in Large Populations (HELP)
The HELP Course is a three-week intensive graduate level training course, taught in conjunction with the Medical Division of the International Committee of the Red Cross. Through the facilitation of the Center for Excellence, the HELP Course has been taught for ten consecutive years at the East-West Center located on the University of Hawaii at Manoa Campus in Honolulu, Hawaii. The HELP Course was created by the International Committee of the Red Cross with the participation of the University of Geneva and the World Health Organization to meet the public health needs of health professionals working in emergency situations.

Pandemic Influenza Workshops
COE has launched a series of Pandemic Influenza courses in the region. The effort is focused on building capacity, enhancing relationships, and exchanging information. The overarching design is to facilitate and participate with countries in the region that desire to enhance their surveillance and response capabilities to a Public Health emergency.

COE has collaborating partners in the region that assist with the courses. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) provides curriculum and instructors for all Laboratory related modules and the Lab courses that is being offered twice this year to build surveillance capacity within the military medical departments.

Activities
On 14–15 September 2009, COE and United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) co-hosted the annual Asia-Pacific Conference on Military Assistance to Disaster Relief Operations (APC-MADRO) in Honolulu, Hawaii.

COE Director, LtGen John F. Goodman gave the keynote address at the 9th annual Association for Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Regional Forum Inter-Sessional Meeting on Disaster Relief (ARF ISM-DR) in Honolulu, 16–18 September.