‘TragiCIMICal’: An Attempt at Civil and Military Cooperation in Lebanon

Abstract

In view of recent studies on civil-military cooperation (CIMIC) in post-conflict and post-emergency environments, this chapter introduces a case study carried out in Lebanon between 2006 and 2009. Following the conflict between Lebanon and Israel in the summer of 2006, a collection of Italian NGOs, governmental agencies, and units of the UN military contingent (UNIFIL) designed and signed a Protocol of Mutual Collaboration. At the time of the events described in this chapter, I was working as an international consultant for the Italian Foreign Affairs Ministry with the mandate of coordinating a post-emergency programme and therefore contributing to the reconstruction of a Lebanon devastated by the incursion of the Israeli army during the conflict that had just broken out between the two countries in July–August 2006. Through my university degree, I had been trained as an anthropologist and had carried out social research after graduating; in the subsequent period from 2001 to the present, however, I neither worked as an anthropologist nor published research. Rather, I chose to take on the role of practitioner, expert and consultant in post-emergency reconstruction and development processes on behalf of several international agencies, including the European Commission, UNICEF and Italian Cooperation.