Humanitarian Logistics and Disaster Management: The Role of Different Stakeholders

Abstract

Humanitarian logistics deals with natural disasters (such as earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, tornadoes, cloud bursts, floods, landslides, droughts, and famines) and man-made disasters (such as chemical leaks, large-scale explosions, terrorist attacks, refugee crisis, and war situations) or a combination of several disasters, which may occur simultaneously. In such disaster situations, the efficiency of humanitarian relief operations depends to a large extent on humanitarian logistics. At times, the adverse impact of the disaster may be so large that the government and all other stakeholder groups may be overwhelmed by the scale of the disaster and the humanitarian assistance and response operations may be weak and ineffective. Therefore, it is important that different stakeholders understand their roles in humanitarian assistance and emergency response and take appropriate steps to respond effectively to reduce the adverse impact of the disaster on the disaster-affected community. This paper discusses the key roles of different stakeholder groups in the effective management of a disaster in the immediate post-disaster phase, especially in the context of the need to develop mature and robust humanitarian logistics systems, and presents a humanitarian action framework summarizing their key roles in humanitarian logistics and supply chain management of relief supplies.

This article is based on the background paper prepared for the International Conference on Humanitarian Logistics 2013, organized by IIM Raipur on 2–3 December 2013 at Raipur, India. A brief report was also published earlier in the Summary of Proceedings of ICHL2013, published by IIM Raipur.