Humanitarian Assistance and Peacekeeping: An Uneasy Alliance?

By Tim Laurence
18 Jun 2004

The central argument of this Whitehall Paper is that the alliance between peacekeepers and those involved in humanitarian assistance will play a very significant role in the international community’s response to the crises which will inevitably arise in the early decades of the twenty-first century. We therefore need to look for ways to improve the alliance, and to understand and mitigate the inevitable tensions within it. It may also help to establish clearer identities for each side of the alliance, because the blurring of their respective roles is often a major source of concern.

Of the other factors which impinge on this alliance, the most important is the political context. Without political initiatives, the other mechanisms can only cope with the effects of conflict; they cannot deal with the underlying causes or produce long-term solutions. The triangular relationship between politics, peacekeeping and humanitarian assistance is at the heart of the discussion.

One of the catchphrases of the 1990s was to call conflicts ‘complex emergencies’, implying that each is in some mysterious way unique and unfathomable. The analysis in this paper attempts to show that this is seldom the case. All conflicts have underlying causes and almost all have possible solutions. More often than not the greatest determinant of a successful outcome to any involvement will be whether key decision-makers can take the time to understand the causes, and have the political will to vigorously pursue a solution. This paper contributes towards greater understanding of the issues involved.

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