Modes of Politicisation and De-Politicisation of Humanitarian Aid, an Assessment of the UN Humanitarian Structures

Usually “securitization” and “politicization” of humanitarian aid are notions used to name the use of this aid for purposes which are in contradiction to humanitarian principles like humanity, neutrality and impartiality, undermining the credibility and increasing the working risks of these organisations. While securitization is a clear defined problem is this not the case for politicization. It is necessary to distinguish different modes of politicization and of de-politicization to describe the astonishing outcomes of the relationship between “politics” and humanitarian aid. Not all modes of politicization have negative and not all modes of de-politicization have positive humanitarian effects. The establishment of international and local humanitarian institutions and operative networks, which are independent of geostrategic, foreign policy aims of donor governments and independent of reporting on crises driven fluctuations of private, donation markets, is a political process. Institutionalisation and juridification are two sides of the same coin: they are implementing international humanitarian law and principles through a specific legal based politicization mode of humanitarian aid which is aiming to de-politicise it from national, diplomatic and security government policies. Different modes of politicization can be illustrated by the debates inside the UN-system about the practical meaning of “Strengthening of the coordination of emergency humanitarian assistance of the UN”, about which the UN General Assembly (GA) passed regularly numerous resolutions every year. There are modes of politicization of humanitarian aid and its norms – modes which are strengthening the administrative, financial and independence of cooperative networks of humanitarian agencies inside and outside the UN system at the international planning level and the implementing local level; and there are modes by which governments are trying to preserve weak levels of institutionalisation of coordination networks and juridification of these norms and to continue in the use of aid for national diplomatic, security and geostrategic aims.