Lesson 9: Civil-Military Communications

 Transcription de la vidéo

We’re finally here! Welcome to the last, final lesson, Lesson 9 – but, as they say, last but not least. This is about civil-military communication. Now, as a minimum, every UN-CIMIC officer has to be an effective communicator. Now, communication in a peace operations environment is much more challenging than under normal circumstances. Obviously, you’re communicating on a daily basis, but you’ll also communicate, at times, under threatening or more tense situations – so you’ll really have to keep your cool when you’re communicating at all times. So, learn how to be a better communicator, learn the basics of the negotiation skills that are talked about here, and learn about the idea of communicating across cultures. Those cultures can exist within the UN mission, between the UN mission and other organizations, and, of course, in the general environment that you’re in. But in any respect, there are many different ways to communicate, and, in fact, most of them are non-verbal. This is where the important aspect of troop behavior is really vital. Now, every soldier in a UN peace operation has an implied CIMIC mission. Whenever they’re engaging the civilian population, which is practically something that they do every day, their behavior says more than anything about what you’re there for, and what you’re trying to do. That can be both very positive and very negative. So you have to help train and educate those that you’re working with to remember that. Because after all, when you think about it, peace operations is conducted under a largely psychological environment, and what you do is going to help shape that environment, and that’s really a very important part of CIMIC. It’s that old saying, right? “Actions speak louder than words.” The kind of work that CIMIC engages in involves many media opportunities – or it could – because a lot of the things that UN-CIMIC is doing are very interesting to the media, and great opportunities to help shape perceptions of the mission, so that’s really important. You have to be able to work very closely, for example, with one of the main partners in the UN mission, which is the Public Information Office. You also have to be able to work with the media. I know a lot of people don’t like to being in front of a camera and they don’t like to be engaging the media. And that’s okay. You yourself as a CIMIC officer don’t necessarily have to become some sort of a media star. There may be some very talented folks in your command who can do that for you, but it’s really important to make sure that that activity is going on. The media is a business – certainly these days it is. And they’re competing, they’re competing with each other, they’re competing amongst themselves, for stories. They’re either going to find those stories, or you’re going to provide them to them. So, make sure that you’re engaging the media by, with, and through your public information officers to give them the story. Because maybe the story that they tell is not the one you really want them to tell. So, work with them. But again, the important thing here, as a UN-CIMIC officer is that being a negotiator, being a mediator, being even a public information or a media information type officer is not your first line of business. But, obviously, it has a huge impact on that psychological environment that you are working in at all times. So, learn how to be an effective communicator as a UN-CIMIC officer.