Malta’s role during the Libya crisis and its Impact on UN humanitarian affairs

Abstract

This dissertation sets out to research Malta’s role during the Libya crisis and its impact on UN Humanitarian Affairs. It aims at understanding whether this role had an influence on the international humanitarian community and deciphering the factors that enabled Malta to play a crucial part in the humanitarian intervention throughout the Libya Crisis. To do this, the dissertation relied on semi-structured interviews with International Organisations that operated through Malta, to generate data on the bearing the Maltese Government had on the operations. Moreover, how the effect was brought about was further analysed through interviews with officials from the Maltese Government that worked on the humanitarian hub set-up in Malta. This data was then theoretically contextualised by means of the Idealist paradigm in International Relations, to assess the driving force behind such a humanitarian response by the Maltese Government; and Small State theory, to map out the functions and mechanisms that made such a response possible, despite Malta’s size limitations. The findings suggest that political will and the public administration mechanisms of a small State were the contributory elements for the fast and effective decision-making that made the Malta-model so successful in facilitating a humanitarian response for the international community to deliver aid to war-torn Libya effectively and efficiently. This dissertation explores whether the Malta-model may serve as a blue print for the improvement of existing practices pertaining to supply chain management, especially for the United Nations World Food Programme’s Logistics Cluster, other International Organisations (IOs) and Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs).