Paper details

Paper authors	Salla Turunen
In panel on	Changing practices of humanitarian advocacy
Paper presenter(s) will be presenting	In-Person / Online

Abstract

Humanitarian diplomacy is a common practice among humanitarian actors. It can be briefly described as advancing humanitarian interests by diplomatic means. However, its related scholarly field is limited in its understanding of how humanitarian diplomacy manifests in the world. The United Nations (UN) is an example of an under-explored actor, which is contrasted by its prominence both as a humanitarian actor and diplomatic body. This article contributes to this lacuna in knowledge with an exploratory case study of the UN’s main humanitarian coordination entity, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). Benefiting from practice theory and in-depth interviews with current and former OCHA staff members, the article uses an analytical framework based on humanitarian diplomatic practices to structure the discussion. This framework consists of five basic characteristics: ‘why’ OCHA’s humanitarian diplomatic practices take place, ‘what’ they mean, ‘who’ they include, ‘where’ they occur and ‘how’ they are done. The article concludes that the practitioners of the organization engage in humanitarian diplomacy first and foremost as principled pragmatists, continuously seeking a balance between humanitarian ideals and principles on the one hand and the humanitarian operational realities and challenges on the ground on the other.

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