Qatar and Humanitarian Diplomacy: Leveraging Aid to Build Global Partnerships

Abstract

Qatar is noted to have relatively recently become an active actor in humanitarian diplo-macy, using aid to strengthen diplomacy and diplomatic presence. Through a network of organisations receiving official support from the state, Qatar has achieved a pragmatic level of humanitarian activity closely connected with the agenda of diplomacy. This study evaluates Qatar’s humanitarian diplomacy approach by focusing on the key institutions, geographical areas, and sectors. The study adopts an explanatory cross-sectional research design that integrates quantitative and qualitative data collected from institutional re- cords, field visits, and expert’ surveys to assess the impact of Qatari humanitarian diplo-macy. While serving the humanitarian goal of providing aid to struggling citizens in target countries, current research also portrays Qatari humanitarian diplomacy as effective in.improving both the quality of bilateral relations and the country’s international standing.