Linking humanitarian diplomacy and peace
Challenges and opportunities in Southern Thailand and the Central African Republic
Unprecedented need amid sharp funding cuts has intensified pressure on humanitarian actors to ‘do more with less’ by contributing not only to immediate relief but also to longer-term peace and development. Humanitarian diplomacy is not a substitute for peacebuilding, but it can, under the right conditions, meaningfully contribute to creating conditions that pave the way for peace. However, these contributions are rarely deliberate or coordinated as humanitarian diplomacy remains largely confined to access negotiations, often treated as distinct from peacebuilding and under-analysed in its potential to shape conflict dynamics.
While humanitarians regularly engage with armed groups to gain access to people in need and to ensure the protection of civilians, humanitarian diplomacy remains relatively unexplored as a contributor to peacebuilding, largely due to concerns that this could jeopardise humanitarian principles by raising risks of politicisation, erosion of neutrality, and compromising humanitarian access.
This study addresses this critical gap, exploring whether and how humanitarian diplomacy with armed groups can advance peace without undermining humanitarian principles. It is based on two case studies, Thailand and Central African Republic, which help illustrate how humanitarians can effectively navigate risks to more deliberately contribute to peace outcomes while delivering their humanitarian mandates.
The authors have also developed an abridged four-page Briefing Note that summarises the key action points from the research.