Humanitarian Logistics : Enabling Disaster Response

Abstract

Humanitarian relief organizations (HROs) coordinate billions of dollars in relief annually to victims of natural disasters, civil conflict and war. Their chief task is the timely mobilization of financing and goods from international donors and administering relief to vulnerable beneficiaries at disaster sites across the globe. As such, logistics is central to their activities and strategic to their missions. Our research has shown, however, that environmental factors, such as the unpredictability of disasters, and the nature of funding have resulted in logistics operations with high employee turnover rates, fragmented technology, poorly-defined manual processes, and a lack of institutional learning over time. As a consequence, the role and significance of logistics is not well understood or appreciated in most HROs or by the donors who provide the financial support for relief.