In recent years, the United Nations has struggled to resolve conflicts from Ethiopia to Myanmar and often ended up focusing instead on managing their humanitarian fall-out. The Security Council has mandated no new large-scale blue-helmet peace operations since 2014. The U.N.’s role in mediating peace deals has also declined since the turn of the century. By contrast, its humanitarian operations have continued to expand. The World Food Programme alone projects that it will have $8 billion to spend in 2025. That is only half of what it says that it needs to cover global food crises, but it is already more than what the U.N. spends on peacekeeping and political affairs combined.
Given the major divisions among the leading members of the Security Council, some diplomats and U.N. officials believe that the world organization’s shift from conflict resolution to humanitarian assistance will continue. As I noted in a recent article for the Journal of International Peacekeeping, the Security Council itself is spending an increasing amount of time debating humanitarian issues. In the first months of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, the council could not agree to call for a ceasefire because of U.S. objections. But it still passed two resolutions on the need to improve humanitarian aid deliveries to Gaza. One ambassador who recently served in the body refers to it as the “Humanitarian Council,” as this is the only field where it can reach agreement.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who once headed the U.N. refugee agency, UNHCR, also seems inclined to prioritize humanitarian diplomacy over more ambitious conflict resolution. In some recent conflicts, such as the war in Ethiopia, Guterres has deliberately taken a low profile on political matters and concentrated instead on getting aid into desperate areas. He has been much more outspoken over Gaza, repeatedly calling for a ceasefire, but he has not had a chance to mediate.