O envolvimento do ACNUR com as missões integradas da ONU e o impacto no espaço humanitário: uma análise do caso da Libéria

Abstract

This study aims to analyze the impacts of the UN’s integration policies over the humanitarian space, based on the High Commissioner of the United Nations for Refugees (UNHCR). It presents the development of such policies, exposing it as a direct result of a process of reform that sought to bring more coherence to the UN system’s action in favor of peace-building, intending to avoid the repetition of failures such as Rwanda and Srebrenica, which occurred during the 1990s peace operations. It analyzes, furthermore, the relation between the UNHCR’s mandate and the humanitarian space, exposing that the concept of the later, as used by the agency and by other humanitarian actors, favors a space destined to humanitarian action promoted by humanitarian actors in a neutral, impartial and absent form and with political influence. Nevertheless, questioning the possibility of completely divorcing the humanitarian action from politics, it is proposed that the humanitarian space be understood as an arena in which several actors negotiate its interests, world perspectives and operational objectives. This concept would allow to conciliate the heterogeneous nature of the humanitarian system and better understand not only the operational reality of humanitarian action, but also the threats to the humanitarian space represented by the integration policy. To explain and analyze these threats, it is used the five areas of humanitarian space - as identified by the United Nations Integration Steering Group - to assess how integration affects the humanitarian space: humanitarian security; humanitarian access; engagement with non-state armed actors; perceptions of humanitarian actors; and humanitarian advocacy. At the end, an analyses is made of the United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL), a mission that since its genesis was structured under the precepts of integration, with the purpose of assess the impacts of integration on the humanitarian space in the Liberian using the five areas aforementioned. It attempts, therefore, to analyze if the UN integrated missions can expand the humanitarian space for UNHCR. It is, therefore, a documentary analysis - from UNHCR authored files - and a field study, in which data was collected through semi-structured interviews conducted with six UNHCR officers who served in Liberia and were interviewed at March 2015. It was used, moreover, scientific articles, books and academic dissertations obtained through electronic and bibliographic sources. It was concluded that in Liberia the integrated mission had a positive impact on the humanitarian space and that it facilitated the humanitarian action. It is proposed, by the end, that the use of the concept of the humanitarian space as an arena and the strategic engagement promoted by the humanitarian actors with political and military actors would allow humanitarian agencies to offer a stronger protection for those who benefit from their actions. Additionally, it would also better protect humanitarian interests in face of perceived threats that integration may represent to the humanitarian space.