Haiti Joint Operations and Tasking Centre (JOTC) Procedures Brief

Content

1. MINUSTAH, in coordination with OCHA and other key partners, established a Joint Operations and Tasking Centre (JOTC) on 26 January 2010. MINUSTAH, the US, Canada, and other nations have made military and police resources available to be used in accordance with existing policies and guidelines.

2. Utilizing resources and information provided by the key partners, including the Government of Haiti, the JOTC will provide a common situational awareness of the prevailing security and humanitarian situation within Haiti. The JOTC will coordinate the procedures for requesting military or police assistance in support of humanitarian relief operations, which will enable country-wide coordination to avoid duplication of support effort. As a matter of principle, military assets will only be used as a last resort.

3. The key aspects of the revised approach are:

   1. A more effective, efficient and coordinated utilisation of military and police assets.
   2. A single point of contact for requests for military or police assistance.
   3. Priorities set by the humanitarian coordination mechanism, e.g., the Clusters, Humanitarian Country Team (HCT), the HC, but NOT the military or police.
   4. To remove the need for organisations to be in direct contact with the military and police during the requesting procedure.
   5. The military and police receive validated and prioritised requests from a single source.

Procedure for Requesting Assistance

4. Humanitarian organisations wishing to request assistance should first approach the appropriate Cluster, i.e., logistic/transport requests to the Logs Cluster, medical requests to the Health Cluster etc. Whenever possible, such requests should be fulfilled at Cluster level, either by way of mutual support from other Cluster members, or by the allocation of resources available at the Cluster level.

5. If the request cannot be met at the Cluster level and no civilian means of accomplishing the task are available and the Cluster agrees that the request is valid in terms of sectoral priorities and plans, the Cluster will endorse the organisation’s request by signing the form.

6. Request forms are available on the Internet at http://haiti.oneresponse.info and in hard copy at the JOTC reception and at the Cluster Help Desk for three types of requests:

   1. Transport/Logistics Support (using existing Logs Cluster form);
   2. Escort/Area Security Support
   3. Infrastructure/technical Support

NB: Ensure all fields of the form are filled out, especially contact details for follow-up once request is accepted and tasked to a military and/or police unit.

7. For Transport/Logistics Support the requesting process is unchanged. If the Logistics Cluster Coordinator is unable to provide transport/logistics support, the request will be forwarded by the Logistics Cluster to the JOTC for action.

8. For Security and Infrastructure/Technical requests, the Requesting Organisation must complete a form and have it signed by the relevant Cluster Leader. For example, support for a health activity must be approved by the Health Cluster Coordinator, for an education activity by the Education Cluster Coordinator. This step is to ensure the activity being supported fits within the overall Cluster strategy and priorities.

9. The completed form, with the signature of the Cluster Coordinator, should be brought to the JOTC reception for logging and further action. The JOTC is located on the MINUSTAH Logbase near the cluster briefing area, adjacent to the UNICEF compound.

10. Where there are two requests concerning a single event, e.g., a request for transport AND escorts or security, then two separate request forms are required. The two forms must be cross-referenced, and delivered to the JOTC together, once endorsed by the appropriate cluster(s). This is to avoid the case where security assistance is stood up for a task which the military or police is otherwise unable to support.

Procedure After Request is Received/Processed

• JOTC will receive request and identify military and/or police assets to meet the request
• Once request has been assigned and accepted by a military and/or police unit for action, the military and/or police unit will establish contact with the requesting organisation to undertake detailed planning.

The forms can be downloaded at http://haiti.oneresponse.info

For questions or more information:

E-mail: minustahjoc@un.org Mission Duty Officer: +509 3702 6613