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Humanitarian Organizations in International Disaster Relief: Understanding the Linkage Between Donors and Recipient Countries

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Abstract

This study explores how humanitarian organizations (HOs) link donors and recipients in a disaster relief coordination mechanism. Based on an analysis of real data collected from the financial tracking service, our results show that disaster assistance through the HO channel greatly exceeds the funding delivered by the non-HO channel. The severity of the disaster is positively correlated with the involvement of HOs. Disaster-stricken countries that belong to the Non-Aligned Movement receive more assistance through the HO channel. The recipients with less international trade may attract more HO-channel funding, but higher international tourism expenditures also may result in more HO-channel funding. We also found that the determinants of the disaster relief coordination path vary greatly in terms of trade openness, political regime, and geographic factors. Based on the analysis of the primary humanitarian relief supply chain, the results show that some countries prefer to donate through large international HOs (e.g., Japan and Canada), and other countries favor national level organizations (e.g., the UK and the USA). Finally, to improve the efficiency of international disaster relief, the paper suggests a coordination platform that involves the main donors, frequent recipients, HOs, and a Global Information Network that can assist in coordinating disaster relief activities.

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Notes

  1. The definition of natural disaster is given by United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR), available at: https://www.unisdr.org/we/inform/terminology.

  2. There is a difference between promised and delivered aid, which can be extremely difficult to trace. Aid can also be highly politicized as witnessed in the complexities of the humanitarian aid relationships between Cuba and the United States (the respective governments have been offering and rejecting disaster assistance from one another on numerous occasions over a prolonged period of time). More recent phenomena in disaster aid are the requests for particular types of assistance (e.g., expertise or resources), earmarking funds for specific relief projects, and tracking down the use of funds..

  3. https://www.eiu.com/public/topical_report.aspx?campaignid=DemocracyIndex2011.

  4. http://www.nti.org/treaties-and-regimes/non-aligned-movement-nam/.

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Funding

This study was funded by National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Number: 71701198, 71921001 and 71828102), and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (WK2040160028).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Management, University of Science and Technology of China, 96 Jinzhai Road, Hefei, 230026, People’s Republic of China

    Jiuchang Wei & Ao Wang

  2. International School of Business and Finance, Sun Yat-sen University, Office 216, Seaside Red Building 14, Zhuhai Campus, Zhuhai, 519082, People’s Republic of China

    Fei Wang

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  1. Jiuchang Wei
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Correspondence to Fei Wang.

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Appendix

Appendix

See Table 7.

Table 7 Terminology and humanitarian organizations
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Wei, J., Wang, A. & Wang, F. Humanitarian Organizations in International Disaster Relief: Understanding the Linkage Between Donors and Recipient Countries. Voluntas 30, 1212–1228 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11266-019-00172-x

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