What OHDACA funds and the authorities behind it

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1. What the appropriation is

Overseas Humanitarian, Disaster, and Civic Aid is a single annual appropriation covering several different authorities. It is "an annual appropriation with a two-year period of availability" supporting humanitarian assistance conducted under a listed set of statutes (SAMM C12.1.2).

One sentence rules out the arrangement most people assume. "The OHDACA appropriation does not provide authority for DoD to issue funds as a grant" (SAMM C12.1.2). Money is spent on activities and articles, not handed to a ministry or an organization to spend.

The manual states the purpose in terms of what the work is meant to relieve. That list is human suffering, disease, hunger, privation and the effects of unexploded explosive ordnance (SAMM C12.1.1).

Alongside that sits a capacity aim. The funding supports building a partner government's ability to provide essential humanitarian services to its own civilian population, and to prepare for and respond to disasters, which reduces reliance on international relief (SAMM C12.1.1).

2. Five authorities, five programs

The appropriation does not carry its own authority. Each activity runs under a named statute (SAMM C12.1.2):

• Space available transport of donated goods. The Secretary "may transport to any country, without charge, supplies which have been furnished by a nongovernmental source and which are intended for humanitarian assistance", and only on a space available basis (10 U.S.C. 402(a)).
• Foreign disaster relief. "The President may direct the Secretary of Defense to provide disaster assistance outside the United States to respond to manmade or natural disasters when necessary to prevent loss of lives or serious harm to the environment" (10 U.S.C. 404(a)).
• Humanitarian mine action. A service secretary may provide demining and stockpiled conventional munitions assistance where it will promote either the security interests of both countries or the operational readiness skills of the participating forces (10 U.S.C. 407(a)(1)).
• Excess non-lethal property. "The Secretary of Defense may make available for humanitarian relief purposes any nonlethal excess supplies of the Department of Defense" (10 U.S.C. 2557(a)(1)).
• Funded transportation and wider humanitarian purposes. Funds appropriated for humanitarian assistance "shall be used for the purpose of providing transportation of humanitarian relief and for other humanitarian purposes worldwide" (10 U.S.C. 2561(a)(1)).

The mine action authority carries a limit on the people, not only on the money. Members of the armed forces providing demining assistance may not engage in the physical detection, lifting or destroying of landmines, unexploded ordnance or other explosive remnants of war. The single exception is where a member does so for the concurrent purpose of supporting a military operation (10 U.S.C. 407(a)(3)).

3. The five sectors

Within the assistance program, work is sorted into fixed categories. "DoD HA programs and activities are categorized into one of five sectors of assistance or focus areas: disaster preparedness (DP) and disaster risk reduction (DRR), health, primary education, basic infrastructure, and Humanitarian Mine Action (HMA)" (SAMM C12.2.2).

The boundaries are drawn tightly inside each one. Health work is to emphasize public health capacity building, and the manual excludes an adjacent field expressly: "Support to veterinary care, care of livestock, animal welfare and commercial agriculture falls outside the scope of OHDACA-funded HA" (SAMM C12.2.2.2).

Disaster preparedness covers a recognizable set of deliverables: emergency management training, construction or renovation of emergency management centers and relief warehouses, planning for response and recovery, exercise development, and the training of emergency responders (SAMM C12.2.2.1).

4. What the appropriation may not pay for

The manual lists the exclusions in one place, and several of them are the kind of work a partner ministry most often asks for (SAMM C12.6.4):

• activities which support or provide vocational training;
• customs duties and value added tax payments;
• activities intended to assist economic development, national security, law enforcement, social centers, environmental remediation, athletics, recreation or the recovery of human remains;
• partner participant training at a formal Department training course;
• activities which train or equip non-governmental or private organizations;
• partner employee salaries or other compensation.

Where a proposal does not fit, the manual sends it elsewhere rather than stretching the definition. Combatant commands are told to consider other security cooperation programs, and it names two: the authority to build foreign security force capacity, and the education and training program (SAMM C12.3.1). The first is described in Section 333, the authority to build partner capacity.

5. The notification threshold

Above a stated figure, Congress is told first. "before providing any program or activity of assistance in excess of $5M, the SECDEF shall submit a notification to appropriation committees" (SAMM C12.2.7.9).

Urgency does not remove the obligation. Where extraordinary circumstances affecting national security interests exist, assistance may be provided before notification, but "the provision of assistance must be reported to Congress within 48 hours of the provision of assistance" (SAMM C12.2.7.9).

The notice states the amount, type and purpose of the assistance and its recipient, the goals and objectives, and the number and role of any members of the armed forces involved (SAMM C12.2.7.9).

6. How the money is judged afterwards

These activities carry an evaluation regime of their own. Combatant commands fund a country monitoring visit to each partner approximately every two years (SAMM C12.2.4.4).

Reporting after those visits runs on two clocks. The personnel conducting the visit submit a report to the combatant command within two weeks, and "The CCMD must submit CPM reports to DSCA within 30 days of the CPM visit" (SAMM C12.2.4.4).

At the end of each fiscal year those reports feed an evaluation of how effective the funded activities were against the program's purposes (SAMM C12.2.4.5). The manual is candid that the framework has to allow for factors outside its reach, since humanitarian conditions are shaped by things the funding cannot influence (SAMM C12.2.4.1).

Key terms

OHDACA	Overseas Humanitarian, Disaster, and Civic Aid, the appropriation behind these programs. SAMM C12.1.2.
HA	Humanitarian assistance, the project program covering the five sectors. SAMM C12.2.2.
HMA	Humanitarian mine action, run under 10 U.S.C. 407.
FDR	Foreign disaster relief, directed by the President under 10 U.S.C. 404.
CPM	Country program monitoring, the visit made to each partner about every two years.

Every statement above links to the document behind it. The full source list for this piece is on the sources page.

This page describes public United States government programs for general information. It is not legal, regulatory or procurement advice, and it does not address the facts of any particular case.

How Sentfore supports this

Humanitarian work under these authorities happens in the same places as everything else in this section, and needs the same support. Sentfore provides secure movement, protective security, facilities and life support in difficult environments. Requirements can be sent through the contact page.