UN peacekeepers and the humanitarian community: A strained relationship

What strains working relationships between United Nations (UN) peacekeepers and the humanitarian community? That is the question answered by this article. As UN peacekeeping missions and their practices evolve over time, so to do their relationships with partners and other actors in the field. The partnerships needed for a peacekeeping mission to be deployed and achieve its mandate are diverse and multifaceted. Missions such as United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic (MINUSCA), United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO), United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) and the recently closed MINUSMA have undertaken ‘robust’ stabilisation mandates with more military capabilities than ever before which has been argued to have had a negative impact on the missions’ relationships with non-governmental organizations NGOs). This article gathers recent experiences of how UN peacekeeping missions and the humanitarian community (including other UN agencies, funds and programmes, and NGOs) work together in the field to draw out the straining factors in those relationships. To do this, 31 semi-structured interviews were undertaken between September 2023 and February 2024 with participants with experience of such relationships between peacekeepers and humanitarian actors. Whilst presenting a rich dataset of experiences of individuals working in this space, the article highlights the importance of leadership across all organisations to drive common agendas and positive working relationships that are in the interest of conflict-affected communities.