Managing Humanitarian Relief

is aimed at relief workers charged with putting together a programme of action to help people in extreme crisis. It provides humanitarian relief managers with a single comprehensive reference for all the management issues they are likely to encounter in emergency situations.

This book discusses emerging themes in the area of humanitarian logistics. It examines how humanitarian logistics and supply chains play a key role, focusing on rapidly delivering the correct amount of goods, people and monetary resources to the locations needed to achieve the success of relief efforts in response to global emergencies such as flood, earthquakes, wars etc. With an increase in the frequency, magnitude and impact of both natural and manmade disasters, effective delivery of humanitarian aid is an issue that is becoming increasingly important in the context of disaster management. The book focuses on how logistics systems and supply chains responsible for delivering this aid from origin to recipients can be made more effective and efficient. It also discusses how the development of information technology systems that can provide visibility to the disaster relief supply chain marks a huge step forward for the humanitarian sector as a whole. As more organizations begin to adopt and implement these systems and visibility is established, the use of key performance indicators will then become essential to further enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of these supply chains.

​​​​​​​​​​​​Humanitarian logistics has received increasing interest both from logistics academics and practitioners as a result of the dramatic increase in both natural and man-made disasters. The impact on affected populations can be all the more limited as much as the logistics operations in response to emergencies are effective and efficient. Collaboration with various relevant actors involving in the emergency resolution can help to reduce costs, increase speed, and improve the leanness/agility level in the humanitarian supply chain, and viceversa, poor coordination among them is cited as an explanation for performance gaps. As disasters become increasingly complex better collaboration not only with government agencies, military units, humanitarian organizations, but also through partnerships with private business becomes more and more important. However, such partnerships are not easy as organizations in the two sectors are extremely different. The main aim of this study is exploring more in depth the partnership between profit and non-profit in emergency relief operations, with a specific attention to the cross-learning potential for both the logistics service provider (profit) and the humanitarian organization (non-profit).

In addressing humanitarian crises, the international community has long understood the need to extend beyond providing immediate relief, and to engage with long-term recovery activities and the prevention of similar crises in the future. However, this continuum from short-term relief to rehabilitation and development has often proved difficult to achieve. This book aims to shed light on the continuum of humanitarian crisis management, particularly from the viewpoint of major bilateral donors and agencies. Focusing on cases of armed conflicts and disasters, the authors describe the evolution of approaches and lessons learnt in practice when moving from emergency relief to recovery and prevention of future crises. Drawing on an extensive research project conducted by the Japan International Cooperation Agency Research Institute, this book compares how a range of international organizations, bilateral cooperation agencies, NGOs, and research institutes have approached the continuum in international humanitarian crisis management. The book draws on six humanitarian crises case studies, each resulting from armed conflict or natural disasters: Timor-Leste, South Sudan, the Syrian crisis, Hurricane Mitch in Honduras, the Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami in Indonesia, and Typhoon Yolanda. The book concludes by proposing a common conceptual framework designed to appeal to different stakeholders involved in crisis management. Following on from the World Humanitarian Summit, where a new way of working on the humanitarian-development nexus was highlighted as one of five major priority trends, this book is a timely contribution to the debate which should interest researchers of humanitarian studies, conflict and peace studies, and disaster risk-management.

Focusing on the specific challenges of research design and exploring the opportunities of conducting research in humanitarian logistics and supply chain management, this handbook is a significant contribution to future research. Chapters include extensive descriptions of methods used, highlighting their advantages and disadvantages, and the challenges in scoping, sampling, collecting and analysing data, as well as ensuring the quality of studies. Covering a wide variety of topics including risk and resilience and the impact of humanitarian logistics on capacity building, sustainability and the local economy, it also explores the need for scalability and co-ordination in the humanitarian network. Contributors provide important insight on future directions and offer crucial guidance for researchers conducting projects within the field.

This volume provides a survey of current research problems and results in humanitarian operations research. Additionally, it discusses existing applications of humanitarian operations research, and considers new research efforts that clearly extend existing research and applications. The book is divided into three sections that provide an overview of the subject, a look at the theory, and an examination of applications. The overview section presents chapters on modeling approaches and metrics to evaluate nonprofit operations; chief findings of fieldwork research in disaster response logistics; the use of cash as a form of relief; and measuring markets that supply cash-based humanitarian interventions. The theory section includes chapters that examine the partner proliferation problem in disaster response networks; a case study of humanitarian logistics that examines how humanitarian culture informs change adoption; and a look at the current state of the art for information visibility in humanitarian operations. Finally, the application section focuses on blood products, vaccines, and food assistance, with individual chapters on efficient inventorying and distribution of blood products during disasters; a detailed look at modeling in the context of the vaccine supply chain; a framework for achieving equity, effectiveness, and efficiency in food bank operations; and a spatio-temporal vulnerabili ty assessment of the resilience of a population affected by sudden lack of food.

This edited volume highlights recent research advances in humanitarian relief logistics. The contributed chapters span the spectrum of key issues and activities from preparedness to mitigation operations (response), planning and execution. The volume also presents state-of-the-art methods and systems through current case studies. Significant issues in planning and execution of humanitarian relief logistics discussed in this volume include the following: • Approaches that tackle realistic relief distribution networks. In addition to large-scale computing issues, heuristics may handle the complexity and particularities of humanitarian supply chains • Methods that integrate real-time information while effectively coping with time pressure and uncertainty, both of which are inherent to a disaster scene • Judicious recourse strategies that allow a quick and effective restoration of pre-planned solutions whenever an unpredictable event occurs • Coordination of multiple parties that are often involved in managing a disaster, including NGOs, local, state and federal agencies. This volume provides robust evidence that research in humanitarian logistics may lead to substantial improvements in effectiveness and efficiency of disaster relief operations. This is quite encouraging, since the unique characteristics of disaster scenes provide significant opportunities for researchers to investigate novel approaches contributing to logistics research while offering a significant service to society.

Due to the latest catastrophes caused by both man and nature, humanitarian logistics has received increasing interest from academics, practitioners and specialists. These interests are increased as well by an expanding market of disaster relief and by the fact that disaster relief supply chains are complex and dynamic, not to mention that they have a lot of uncertainties that make operations very complicated. Especially in disaster relief, the supply chains have to be fast, agile and flexible in order to rapidly provide the appropriate amount, and type of emergency supplies, to minimize human suffering or death. The last mile distribution is the final stage of the disaster relief supply chain, i.e. the delivery of relief supplies from local distribution centres to beneficiaries affected by disasters.The aim of this paper is to give an overview of supply chains in disaster relief, identify the main problems of the last mile distribution in disaster relief operations, describe optimization possibilities of the private sector, and examine the applicability for disaster situations.

Imagine planning an event like the Olympics. Now imagine planning the same event but not knowing when or where it will take place, or how many will attend. This is what humanitarian logisticians are up against. Oversights result in serious consequences for the victims of disasters. So they have to get it right, fast.