{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.022055580061755623, 'fraction_numerical': 0.00529333921482135, 'mean_word_length': 5.370786516853933, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
Humanitarian need drives multilateral disaster aid

Significance Threats to human livelihoods resulting from natural hazards are increasing due to climate change. Climate-related disasters such as floods, storms, and droughts have destroyed shelter, reduced crop yields, harmed livestock, and fueled conflict, especially in developing countries. The key finding is that UN aid in the aftermath of climate-related disasters is largely driven by humanitarian need. The UN seems able to fend off donor states’ strategic interest and allocate more aid after disasters where hazard severity is greater and need is more pressing. Based on this finding, we argue that the UN lives up to its stated principles of neutrality, impartiality, and independence in disaster aid, corroborating the legitimacy of the UN in allocating disaster aid. As the climate changes, human livelihoods will increasingly be threatened by extreme weather events. To provide adequate disaster relief, states extensively rely on multilateral institutions, in particular the United Nations (UN). However, the determinants of this multilateral disaster aid channeled through the UN are poorly understood. To fill this gap, we examine the determinants of UN disaster aid using a dataset on UN aid covering almost 2,000 climate-related disasters occurring between 2006 and 2017. We make two principal contributions. First, we add to research on disaster impacts by linking existing disaster data from the Emergency Events Database (EM-DAT) to a meteorological reanalysis. We generate a uniquely global hazard severity measure that is comparable across different climate-related disaster types, and assess and bolster measurement validity of EM-DAT climate-related disasters. Second, by combining these data with social data on aid and its correlates, we contribute to the literature on aid disbursements. We show that UN disaster aid is primarily shaped by humanitarian considerations, rather than by strategic donor interests. These results are supported by a series of regression and out-of-sample prediction analyses and appear consistent with the view that multilateral institutions are able to shield aid allocation decisions from particular state interests to ensure that aid is motivated by need.