The Department of Defense (DoD) has released its first ever Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response Action Plan (CHMR-AP), which outlines the DoD’s objectives to mitigate civilian harm resulting from military operations. To achieve this, the CHMR-AP seeks to prioritize “the protection and restoration of the civilian environment as a critical factor in the planning and conduct of military operations.”

The CHMR-AP details 11 objectives with corresponding action plans related to the prevention of and response to civilian harm. Among the 11 objectives include:

• Establish a Civilian Protection Center of Excellence to expedite and institutionalize the advancement of knowledge, practices, and tools for preventing, mitigating, and responding to civilian harm.
• Develop standardized civilian harm operational reporting and data management processes to improve how DoD collects, shares, and learns from data related to civilian harm, including from data integrated across disparate reviews, investigations, and events.
• Establish Department-wide procedures for assessing and investigating civilian harm resulting from operations, and expand the sources of information used in assessments and investigations.

More resources related to civilian harm and civilian casualties can be found the Homeland Security Digital Library (HSDL).