Date Diplomacy: The Strategic-Altruistic Axis behind behind Emerging Middle Eastern Humanitarian Aid Donors

Abstract

The last twenty two years have seen a dramatic increase in the importance of and in monetary share of humanitarian aid issued by emerging donors. This work aims to isolate four of them, Turkey, The United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia in order to determine their under lying strategic goals and rationale when it comes to their humanitarian aid donations. This was done by analyzing the last two decades worth of data which they reported the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs’ Financial Tracking Service and conducting a long form statistical analysis of their donation patterns. The subsequent data was then cross referenced with political theory and the works geopolitical scholars designated the Strategic-Altruistic Axis, in order to assign theoretical framing to the emerging donors donation patterns. Based on these two components the donors were sorted from least to most strategic with their humanitarian aid practices in order of: Turkey, Kuwait, The United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia. While more work is still needed to determine the full effects of these emerging donors aid policies, this paper concludes based on its theoretical framing the more strategic a donor is with its aid the more likely for political disruptions to occur which place the recipients of aid in jeopardy.