The effectiveness of the United Nations as a humanitarian actor

This thesis evaluates in which ways the United Nations (UN) is effective as a humanitarian actor across different regions, and in which ways it is not. It raises the hypothesis that UN’s effectiveness as a humanitarian actor varies significantly across different regions and contexts, with humanitarian interventions outside of Europe being less successful. Framed within Liberal Institutionalist theory this thesis examines three major humanitarian crises occurring during military conflicts across three continents: Cambodia in Asia, Sudan in Africa, and Bosnia in Europe. The thesis establishes a quantitative framework using public data to construct Measures of Effectiveness (MoE) for a more objective and meaningful evaluation. The analysis shows that during UN interventions mortality and morbidity observably reduced across all cases. However, other MoEs remained less consistent or inconclusive. While the European case demonstrates a faster intervention speed of the UN and shorter conflict duration, the overall scale of UN effort did not conclusively vary between cases. Ultimately, humanitarian effectiveness may depend less on UN engagement and more on the political role of aid, control and stability of the situation, and the prevalence of misuse of aid on the ground.