Office of Military Affairs
The Office of Military Affairs (OMA) works to deploy the most appropriate and effective military capability in peacekeeping missions.
UN Photo/Sylvain Liechti
MONUSCO Uruguayan peacekeepers observe movements of troops north of Goma
OMA is made up of the three services listed below, and the Office of the Military Advisor:
The Force Generation Service
The Service comprises a force generation team, a standby arrangements team and a military personnel team. The core functions are:
- Acting as the principal military point of contact with troop-contributing countries conducting the force generation process, including the generation and rotation of all military contingents and individuals, and supporting the selection process for senior UN military appointments;
- Participating, in the contingent-owned equipment negotiation process, concluding memorandums of understanding for the timely deployment of troops and, when necessary, for the force adjustment, and providing technical advice on contingent-owned equipment claims by Member States, as required;
- Initiating and maintaining records of service and performance for individuals and statistics and country profiles for all UN military deployments;
- Developing, in collaboration with the Department of Field Support, generic guidelines for troop-contributing countries and mission-specific military guidelines related to force requirements;
- Coordinating reconnaissance visits for troop-contributing countries providing contingents to peacekeeping operations;
- Maintaining and updating records of pledges made by Member States in the UN standby arrangements system for the provision of troops, equipment and services to peacekeeping operations.
The Military Planning Service
The Service comprises three geographically based planning teams, a long-term planning team and specialist aviation and maritime operational planners. Its main functions are:
- Providing military-strategic planning advice to the Military Adviser;
- Conducting military-strategic planning for emerging and existing Department-led operations;
- Producing foundational military guidance documents, including the command directive, military rules of engagement, military-strategic concepts of operation, and Statement of Unit Requirements;
- Monitoring the military plans to reduce the time required to plan for major changes, including mission termination;
- Specifying the force or operational requirements for individual military personnel, military formed units and unit equipment in new or revised concepts of operation and contingency plans.
The Current Operations Service
The Service comprises three geographically based teams. Its core functions are:
- Providing advice to the heads of the military components of Department-led operations on technical aspects of military operations, such as contingency planning, force rotations and operational reporting, in coordination with the integrated operational teams, to ensure that military aspects are properly integrated or coordinated, and interacting with permanent missions of Member States on all military technical operational issues, significant incidents, accidents, injuries, deaths, repatriations and other current issues;
- Providing the Military Adviser and, through the Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations, senior leadership at UN Headquarters with military information and analysis related to current events;
- Coordinating visits by Member States, the military and police advisers, community and senior military staff from Headquarters to peacekeeping operations, briefing visiting military individuals, groups or delegations and coordinating the briefing and debriefing process for senior military officials in peacekeeping operations;
- Coordinating responses by the Office of Military Affairs to disciplinary issues involving military personnel.
