A liaison officer or LNO is a person that liaises between two organizations to communicate and coordinate their activities. Generally, they are used to achieve the best utilization of resources or employment of services of one organization by another. In the military, liaison officers may coordinate activities to protect units from collateral damage

Collateral damage

Collateral damage is damage to people or property that is unintended or incidental to the intended outcome. The phrase is prevalently used as an euphemism for civilian casualties of a military action.-Etymology:...

. They also work to achieve mutual understanding or unity of effort

Unity of effort

Unity of effort is the state of harmonizing efforts among multiple organizations working towards a similar objective. This prevents organizations from working at cross purposes and it reduces duplication of effort. Multiple organizations can achieve unity of effort through shared common objectives...

among disparate groups. For incident or disaster management, liaison officers serve as the primary contact for agencies responding to the situation. Liaison officers often provide technical or subject matter expertise of their parent organization. Usually an organization embeds liaison officers in other organizations to provide face-to-face coordination.