U.S. Indo-Pacific Command’s J6 Multinational Communications Interoperability Program (MCIP) team and the Royal Brunei Armed Forces recently hosted a critical planning workshop in Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei Darussalam. The Information Sharing Module and Planning Staff Workshop was held from Feb. 28 to March 8, 2024, brought together 50 personnel from 18 Indo-Pacific countries.

This workshop marked the first event in this year's iteration of the Pacific Endeavor exercise series, organized by USINDOPACOM. Pacific Endeavor focuses on improving communication interoperability between participating nations, in order to strengthen collective abilities to respond to disasters.

MCIP and Pacific Endeavor go beyond communication, to provide a combined approach to disaster preparedness and enable seamless collaboration and coordinated cyber efforts. Participants include military forces from the U.S. and partner nations, interagency organizations, UN agencies, humanitarian groups, academia and industry partners.

Pacific Endeavor works towards five main goals:

Building Relationships: Building trust and communication between military and non-military organizations.

Technical Interoperability: Ensuring smooth communication and information sharing between different technological systems.

Procedural Interoperability: Establishing standardized operating procedures (SOPs) for coordinated response.

Capacity Building: Participants collaborate on new and emerging hardware, software, and military-civilian processes needed for effective disaster response.

Information Sharing and Collaboration: Developing tools and fostering information exchange to improve overall response efforts.

The emphasis of Pacific Endeavor 2024 is partner-nation communication interoperability and data transmission, which plays a critical role in effectively responding to humanitarian and disaster crisis events. Data such as satellite imagery, drone footage and social media reports, must be transmitted quickly to assess damage, identify priority zones and understand the scale of the crisis. This allows for faster and more targeted delivery of aid. 

The PSW1 workshop in Brunei, helped lay the foundation for other partner nations to include Australia, who will host PSW2 in June 2024. These workshops developed the best practices for collaboration and information sharing, including an emphasis on planning, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, and communications capabilities to enhance interoperability.  The PSW scenario planning built the Master Scenario Events List for the culminating exercise, Pacific Endeavor 24, hosted in Sri Lanka, August 2024.

MCIP exercise Pacific Endeavor 2024 will introduce new elements: biohazard surveillance and biohazard defense. The MCIP will explore BSBD communication challenges within the context of HA/DR to include limited access to affected areas, force protection measures, and mitigate biohazards during deployments.

The USINDOPACOM’s J6 Multinational Communications Interoperability Program is a vital component in strengthening the Indo-Pacific region's partnership and preparedness for humanitarian response to natural and man-made disasters. Through collaboration and capacity building, the USINDOPACOM MCIP helps enable a more coordinated and effective response when disaster strikes.