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  ||||   United Nations Coordination of the International Humanitarian Response to the Gulf Crisis 1990-1992
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small icon INFO
  FULL TITLE: United Nations Coordination of the International Humanitarian Response to the Gulf Crisis 1990-1992 (Occasional Paper 13)

AUTHOR(S): Larry Minear, U. B. P. Chelliah, Jeff Crisp, John Mackinlay, and Thomas G. Weiss

PUBLISHER: Watson Institute

PLACE OF PUBLICATION: Providence RI

DATE OF PUBLICATION: 1992

NUMBER OF PAGES: 64 pp.

 
small icon ABSTRACT
  The Gulf Crisis volume, the first formal case study carried out by the Humanitarianism and War Project, offers a definition of coordination that has served as a conceptual foundation for the Project's work: "the systematic utilization of policy instruments to deliver humanitarian assistance in a cohesive and effective manner." (3) Six such instruments are identified: strategic planning, gathering data and managing information, mobilizing resources and ensuring accountability, orchestrating an operational division of labor, negotiating with host political authorities, and exercising leadership.
  The study concludes that the UN failed to coordinate humanitarian activities in the Gulf crisis effectively due to problems both within and among the organizations and between them and the political-military side of the UN house. A number of problems identified, however, were not of the UN's own making. The study recommends designation of a single UN individual in a given country or region to ensure effective coordination and accountability. UN officials credited the subsequent creation of the Department of Humanitarian Affairs in part to the identification of weaknesses in coordination in this study. Other recommendations, both humanitarian and political in thrust, were directed to specific actors: the UN, governments, NGOs, and the international community.
 

The five-person research team interviewed more than 200 actors in the Gulf crisis during the period April-June 1990, including visits to Jordan, Iraq, Iran, Kuwait, Syria, and Turkey as well as to UN and agency headquarters and donor capitals. For comments by a UK ambassador to the UN, a UN official, and a journal reviewer, see Section 8, Selected Reviews of Project Publications.

 
small icon KEYWORDS
 

humanitarian principles, humanitarian access, human rights, politicization, sovereignty, enforcement, warfare, economic sanctions, coordination, bilateralism, civil society, conflict resolution, peace, accountability; Iraq, Kuwait, Jordan, Turkey, Iran, U.S., U.K., Operation Provide Comfort; UN, UN Security Council, DPA, DPKO, UNDRO, DHA, UNICEF, UNHCR, WFP, UNDP, WHO, IOM, UNEP, UNIFEM, UNRWA, NGOs, the Red Cross Movement.

 
small icon REVIEW AND COMMENTS
 

Suzanne M. Plain. "Humanitarian Assistance: For Whose Benefit?" Peacekeeping & International Relations July/August 1994.

UNHCR. "Occasional Paper #13, United Nations Coordination of the International Humanitarian Response To The Gulf Crisis 1990-1992." UNHCR: Refugee Abstracts, vol. 11 number 4, December 1992.

Edmund J. Cain, The UN Systems Operational Activities for Development in Turkey. Comments. (September 1992).

David H.A. Hannay, UK Mission to the UN. Comments. (August 1992).

 

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