After the disengagement of the British South East Asia Command (SEAC) from the Indonesian Archipelago, the organization was renamed as the Temporary Administrative Service (Dutch: Tijdelijke Bestuursdienst, TB) in June 1946.

The NICA was established on 3 April 1944 in Australia and operated as a link between the Netherlands East Indies government-in-exile in Melbourne and the Allied high command in the South West Pacific Area (SWPA).

Before the capitulation of Japan, NICA units already established civil administration in Western New Guinea (i.e. at Hollandia, Manokwari, and on the Schouten Islands), in the Moluccas (on Morotai), and in Borneo (on Tarakan and at Balikpapan).

In response to the strong, averse reaction of the Indonesian revolutionaries to the arrival of the NICA and the inclusion of the colonial term 'Netherlands Indies' in its name, it was renamed in January 1946 to the Allied Military Administration–Civil Affairs Branch (AMACAB), without a Dutch translation.

His most senior adviser (in 1944) and second in command (by 1947) was the Javanese nobleman Raden Abdulkadir Widjojoatmodjo (Salatiga, 1904 - The Hague, 1992), a graduate from Leiden University and a protégé of Professor Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje.