The UN Humanitarian System: Crisis, Opportunities and Russia's Position

Borisov Aleksey Vladimirovich PhD in Philosophy Associate Professor at the Diplomatic Academy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation 119034, Russia, g. Moscow, ul. Ostozhenka, 53/2 str.1 aborisof@gmail.com Other publications by this author

Statements about the crisis of the UN humanitarian system and discussions about possible ways to reform it^[1], provoked by the publication of the Organization's humanitarian appeal for 2023^[2], remained out of sight of the domestic academic and expert community. Perhaps this state of affairs is explained by the fact that Russia considers humanitarian aid not as an independent foreign policy instrument, but only as a kind of assistance, which, according to domestic regulatory documents and strategic planning documents^[3], can be provided in response to "the appeal of the affected foreign state or the United Nations to the international community or the Russian Federation Federation"^[4].

For some reason, it is overlooked that humanitarian aid is not a "type of gratuitous assistance", as indicated by the Federal Law "On Gratuitous Assistance (Assistance) The Russian Federation ..."^[5], and the institute, that is, a set of rules and regulations that determine who, how and under what circumstances can provide assistance. Moreover, according to the definition of the International Court of Justice, it "cannot be considered as illegal interference (in the internal affairs of the State – A.B.) or other violation of international law"^[6]. The existence of such an institution is due to the fact that it contributes to the realization of the interests of many actors in world politics. States legitimize intervention without resorting to costly military-political instruments; international organizations act as a political and resource hub; global NGOs gain voice and access to resources; the UN claims to determine the parameters of the institution and coordinate the actions of participants, acting as a key beneficiary of humanitarian funding. All of the above actors, interacting, form a humanitarian system. Its only normative definition was given in the report of the UN Secretary-General in 2013: "a network of international humanitarian structures functionally linked by the coordination framework established by the General Assembly in its resolution 46/182 and its subsequent resolutions and including the Emergency Relief Coordinator, the Inter-Agency Standing Committee and planning and financing mechanisms, and guided by adherence to the guiding principles, principles of humanity and norms of international law"^[7].

This definition "sins" incompletely and when referring to it, it is necessary to note a number of fundamental points:

Firstly, the humanitarian community, including the UN humanitarian structures, does not represent a kind of holistic, hierarchized organism with a clearly identified control center.

Secondly, in the above definition there is not a word not only about "humanitarian aid", but also about aid as such, especially "gratuitous". Moreover, in subsequent reports of the UN Secretary-General, General Assembly resolutions and discussions on humanitarian assistance, the need to "move away from the categories of charity" will be repeatedly pointed out^[8].

Already in 1995, as a key problem hindering humanitarian coordination, it was pointed out that "there are differences between the organizations of the UN system in terms of management structures, distribution of powers, human resources, the degree of centralization and organization of their mechanisms dealing with emergencies and development issues"^[9]. Over time, the situation has not changed. The creation of a cluster coordination mechanism in the late nineties can only be seen as a futile attempt to overcome the decentralization of the system and give the appearance of coherence, at least to UN humanitarian agencies.

In addition to the UN structures, there are other "international humanitarian structures" that are in no hurry to participate in the coordination mechanisms created by the UN. For example, in 2012, the heads of the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) agreed on an action plan setting out specific responsibilities for implementing the recommendations of the Committee's transformation program related to improving leadership, coordination and accountability in the provision of humanitarian assistance at headquarters and in the field. However, the International Committee of the Red Cross and the International Federation of Societies stated that they fully support the process of implementing the transformation program, but in order to preserve their independence, they refused to sign the protocols^[10]. There were no significant sanctions for evading participation in the coordination mechanisms being created.

This case only highlights the specifics and limits of the existing coordination mechanisms created and promoted by the UN.  Attempts to centralize humanitarian activities, which were initiated by General Assembly resolution 46/182, in which it was unequivocally stated that "the United Nations is called upon to play a major and unique role in providing leadership to the efforts of the international community to support the affected countries and coordinate these efforts… Resources appropriate to future needs should be made available to it"^[11], ended quickly enough. Already the first experiences of responding to large-scale humanitarian crises in Rwanda, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Mozambique have shown the problematic nature of coordinating the actions of a diverse "humanitarian" community, which is reflected in publications, analytical and research projects devoted to the problems of coordination during humanitarian response^[12]. The conclusions were disappointing. Some researchers noted a lack of understanding of the essence and grounds of humanitarian coordination as such^[13], almost all expressed doubt about the achievability of coordinated actions in conditions of "competition in financing issues, disparate fund-raising efforts and the lack of a single mechanism for managing existing financial instruments"^[14]. The dependence of "humanitarians" on the donor community was emphasized by everyone, including the UN Secretary-General, who stated: "The conditionality of donor support with certain requirements still hinders in some cases the implementation of impartial humanitarian activities and may lead to the nomination of impossible demands"^[15].

Speaking at the presentation of the Global Humanitarian Needs Survey for 2023, UN Assistant Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Joyce Msuya, said: "... the global humanitarian system is currently at a turning point, because every year, as needs grow to record levels, the funding gap increases. It is deeply saddening that today our appeal by 2022 is funded by less than half"^[16]. Over the past decade, the gap between the needs determined by the UN and the allocated funds over the past 10 years has averaged slightly more than 40%, but a sharp increase in underfunding occurs in 2020, and currently amounts to more than 50% ^[17], but, nevertheless, the key events that provoked the next alarmist statements about the crisis of the humanitarian system, steel:

First, the reduction of funding for UN humanitarian appeals from institutional donors that are not members of the OECD. Donors such as the UAE, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia are reducing UN funding, preferring to interact with local communities and national governments^[18], using them as channels for providing assistance, and China, not only uses its own channels for delivering humanitarian aid, but also does not provide quantitative data on the volume of aid provided^[19]. With the continued dependence of the UN on funding from Euro-Atlantic donors, when more than 50% of funds are provided by the USA, Germany, the UK and the EU, while the UK significantly reduces the amount of donor funds^[20], the EU prefers to use partner non-governmental organizations, regardless of the degree of their affiliation with the UN^[21], and Germany is in the search for alternative ways of delivering humanitarian aid^[22], a decrease in funding from new donor States is a problem. This problem lies not only in the reduction of controlled financial flows, but also in the growing dependence of the UN humanitarian system on the United States, which is the largest donor.

Secondly, the decline in long-term and targeted funding exacerbates the dependence of the UN on the position of key donors, which allows some researchers to characterize the humanitarian system in its current state as extremely "fragile"^[23]. The program of reforms of the humanitarian system announced in 2016 at the World Humanitarian Summit, called the "Big Deal", assumes the requirement of high-quality financing as a key condition for the success of the reform^[24]. This implies an increase in the share of long-term and non-targeted financing of humanitarian actors. However, non–targeted financing over the past six years did not exceed 16%, and in 2021 it reached the lowest indicators for six years of tracking - 13%^[25]. These data are rather approximate, but reflect the general trend. There are no consolidated quantitative data on long-term financing at all, the last attempt to collect and summarize data was made within the framework of the Report on Global Humanitarian Assistance for 2021^[26], was not recognized as convincing, in 2022 it was stated that, although long-term financing has increased, it is still "insufficient to ensure transformational changes in the humanitarian sector"^[27]. It can be assumed that donors, solving their geopolitical tasks with the help of humanitarian instruments, are in no hurry to give the right to manage this UN instrument. A survey conducted by the OECD in 2021 showed that the majority of DAC member donors are not ready to reconsider the current financing practices and assume that they will not be able to avoid fragmented, fragmented or short-term financing^[28]. And in the reference document "Long-term humanitarian financing: Global baseline conditions and trends", prepared by the British non-governmental analytical organization Development Initiatives, and published in February 2022, it is stated that "targeted" funds make up the majority of long-term financing"^[29].

But this is not the only obstacle to the coordination of humanitarian activities.

Coordination in network structures, namely the UN insists on the network nature of the humanitarian system, is focused on the process of nominating, coordinating and correcting collective goals that are not something originally set. But what is the purpose of the humanitarian system, especially in conditions when there is not even unity in the understanding and definition of humanitarian assistance^[30]? Even those definitions that are used in the practice of humanitarian initiatives of intergovernmental organizations, leading humanitarian agencies, "sin" with excessive breadth. Thus, within the framework of the "Good Humanitarian Donation" initiative launched in 2003, a general definition of humanitarian assistance was developed, which made it possible to more accurately reflect humanitarian obligations in the Financial Control Service (FTS), managed by OCHA, and in OECD/DAC statistics: "The goals of humanitarian activities are to save lives, alleviating suffering and preserving human dignity during and after man-made crises and natural disasters, as well as preventing and strengthening preparedness for such situations. Humanitarian activities should be guided by the humanitarian principles of humanity, ... impartiality, ... neutrality, ... and independence ..."^[31].

In addition to the fact that this definition is adapted to standards that take into account only the interests of donors and involve efforts to coordinate them, such definitions do not contribute to a clear restriction of a particular type of activity as humanitarian, defining a list of funds, services, works and performers. The report of the Joint Inspection Unit, already cited earlier, rightly states that "the diversification and specialization of humanitarian and other related activities further complicate the task of centralized coordination of the activities of the United Nations humanitarian system"^[32]. Only an indication of humanitarian principles makes it possible to single out a humanitarian system.

As mentioned above, in the definition given to the humanitarian system in the report of the UN Secretary-General, we are talking only about a set of organizational structures that can be identified as humanitarian, which are interconnected because they declare adherence to the same guiding principles set out in UN General Assembly resolutions 46/182 (humanity, impartiality, neutrality) and 58/114 (independence), and express minimal consent to the exchange of information on the sites of specialized UN structures and affiliated organizations. It is noteworthy, but the fact that the above humanitarian principles are no more than the basis of corporate identity is also stated in the analytical report on the State of the humanitarian system 2022: "Humanitarian workers still adhere to the principles that form the basis of their identity, but do not fully understand what to do with them in practice"^[33].

The list of these organizations has never been exhaustive and accurate. Peter Maurer, when he was president of the International Committee of the Red Cross (hereinafter – the ICRC), said: "We are faced with an increased number of humanitarian organizations, or at least organizations that declare their humanitarian mandate or vocation. I believe that we should try to define our relationship with them more clearly: either, if possible, develop closer cooperation with them, or clearly identify our difference, depending on each specific situation."^[34] The ICRC, an organization whose norms have been recognized as the basis of the identity of the humanitarian community, can afford the "luxury" of independently determining which organization can be recognized as humanitarian, but not only the ICRC, but also the UN can afford such a luxury. Thus, in the report of the Secretary General of the Organization, made in 2012, it is stated: "As humanitarian needs grow everywhere in the world, an increasingly wide and heterogeneous range of organizations and individuals are involved in meeting them. At the same time, the humanitarian system undergoes evolution over time"^[35].

The provision of assistance is not the exclusive right and privilege of humanitarian organizations, and this is despite the fact that there is still no single, coordinated approach to the definition of humanitarian assistance. Assistance to the victims is provided by many actors, some of whom do not declare or share humanitarian principles, and do not interact with the UN, which does not make their assistance less effective. Such actors include diasporas, local communities, philanthropists, religious organizations, states, and so on. It is no coincidence that Alice Obrecht, Head of the ALNAP Research Department and editor of the State of the Humanitarian System 2022 report, describing the methodology of the report, reports that the authors decided to be guided by their own definition of the humanitarian system, namely: "A network of interconnected institutional and operational organizations through which humanitarian assistance is provided when local and national resources themselves by itself, it is not enough to meet the needs of the population in a crisis"^[36]. In this definition, there is no indication of commitment to humanitarian principles, the emphasis is on the functions of "humanitarian" institutions – compensation for the resource insolvency of states and communities in a crisis. For those who are experiencing the consequences of a catastrophe – anthropogenic, man-made or natural, it does not matter who provides assistance, if this assistance is of proper quality.

The UN's focus on humanitarian principles, the practical applicability of which is questioned by all participants, including the International Committee of the Red Cross, reflects only the UN's desire to outline the circle of participants in humanitarian activities, reserving the right to determine who can be included in the humanitarian system^[37]. This is largely due to the growth of humanitarian organizations, the number of which has now exceeded 5,000, which compete for donor funding.

Back in 2009 Ban Ki - moon stated: "In the last 20 years, the number of entities engaged in the provision of humanitarian assistance has increased significantly, as well as control over their activities has tightened. Improper actions of one subject will inevitably affect the reputation and work of others. Therefore, all subjects of humanitarian activity must always comply with humanitarian principles and adhere to the highest standards of behavior and discipline"^[38]. Here the question is raised about the reputation of actors, which is linked to a humanitarian identity based on a declarative commitment to humanitarian principles. Reputation is important only because of access to resources. Held at the Center  In an October 2021 discussion on the future of humanitarian work, William Stager, who led the USAID personnel service from 2012 to 2017, said: "The phrase that economists would use to describe the modern humanitarian aid system is a closed market. It consists of a relatively small number of players, mainly UN agencies and international NGOs. The current system prevents the emergence of new participants. ... The allocation of funds to certain organizations does not depend on its performance indicators. Donors, including USAID, minimizing risks, allocate funds only to those organizations with which they have interacted in the past"^[39]. Thus, the integrity of the UN is nothing more than an attempt to act as a gatekeeper, determining who is worthy of the pie and who is not. This is especially important in an environment where funding from traditional donors is slowly but steadily declining, and the need for donor funds is growing.

The goal of the UN humanitarian system is coordination, but not delivery and assistance, this task is not expected even in the future. The OCHA Strategic Plan for 2023-2026 points to the problems of coordination of the humanitarian community in the humanitarian response area – the deployment of humanitarian missions without taking into account needs, the independence of humanitarian organizations with independent funding, donors who prefer to work with trusted organizations and require immediate results, the presence of organizations in the response area using non-humanitarian sources of funding. But the proposals aimed at solving these problems are linked to the need for long-term, unrelated financing^[40]. This is the difficulty of coordinating any network structure, when the very possibility of a network implies voluntary consent to interaction and the exchange of resources available to participants in interaction.

What resources do humanitarian organizations, including the UN, have? It is acceptable to assume that humanitarian NGOs and UN humanitarian structures can offer personnel who have certain competencies in matters of assistance, logistical capabilities, access to the victim or in danger. In fact, they act as channels through which donor funds flow through the chains of contracts and subcontracts between UN agencies, international NGOs, national or local civil society organizations. It is donors who make the existence of the humanitarian system possible by determining its parameters, priorities and the nature of funding, and some researchers reasonably claim that donors are the key beneficiaries of the humanitarian system. British researcher Monica Krause insists that donors buy an "act of providing a service"^[41], and the representative of the Center for International Cooperation of the University of New York, Abby Stoddart, states that humanitarian aid depends on a small, exclusive donor base that provides limited resources, and therefore its use is inevitably limited when aid is sent to regions of political importance to a group of donors^[42]. Even those who do not question the intention of the humanitarian community to provide assistance to victims link the activities of humanitarians with the reaction of the donor community, assuming that assistance is provided in such a way that it is noticed and appreciated by the donor community. A positive assessment of donors leads to an increase in the rating and, as a result, the amount of funding for an organization^[43].

The UN's attempts to coordinate the humanitarian community are due only to the fact that at the moment the organization acts, for a number of reasons, as the most preferred channel for bringing donor funds to secondary recipients. Her role as a humanitarian coordinator is possible only if proper amounts of funding are maintained. And if the position of the leading Western countries that control the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, preferring to use OCHA as a gatekeeper, determining who can be attributed to the humanitarian community, which type of activity can be called humanitarian, is understandable and understandable, then Russia's position raises questions.

The Russian Foreign Policy Concept contains an indication that "Russia supports the creation, under the auspices of the UN and other international and regional organizations, of effective cooperation structures in the event of natural disasters, major man-made disasters and other emergencies. ... With its unique experience, technical and human resources, the Russian Federation is an important and effective part of the global emergency management system"^[44]. Such statements only show that Russia does not consider humanitarian aid as an effective foreign policy tool, but is inclined to agree with the infrastructure that has developed at the moment, which shows low efficiency in providing assistance, but is very effective in terms of promoting the political interests of those who set the "rules of the game" and monitor their compliance.

It is difficult to dispute the statement contained on the USAID portal: "... humanitarian assistance goes beyond disaster response and traditional disaster risk reduction activities"^[45], however, agreement with the statement implies the adoption of certain measures. These measures should be primarily aimed at overcoming the existing paradox: Russia has resources, but there is no body responsible for strategic planning of their use, coordinating the activities of many organizations in the field of humanitarian response, analyzing the progress and results of humanitarian activities. Moreover, there is no regulatory framework for policy development in this area. The provision on the provision of humanitarian assistance to foreign states does not contribute to the transformation of humanitarian assistance into an effective tool for the realization of Russia's national interests. On the contrary, it only reinforces the practice of situational response. The second area of activity, no less, and perhaps more important, is efforts aimed at exposing the essence of the global humanitarian system and offering an alternative that can be perceived and shared by those who are not enthusiastic about the current state of affairs, and which will contribute to the promotion and realization of Russia's national interests.

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