ANALYSIS:The disaster shows yet again that relief organisations must be slick and efficient if they are to be effective, writes GRAHAM HEASLIP
WHEN DISASTERS strike, relief organisations respond by delivering aid to those in need. Disasters of the magnitude we are witnessing in Haiti cause donors, beneficiaries and the media to closely monitor how quickly and efficiently relief organisations are able to respond.
Humanitarian organisations have come under increasing pressure to prove to donors pledging millions in aid and goods that they are reaching those most in need.
Humanitarian bodies are under greater scrutiny to monitor the impact of the aid that they deliver, not just the input and output but the whole operation.
This means humanitarian organisations have to become more results-orientated as they become ever more accountable and therefore their operations must be more transparent.
Since disaster relief is about 80 per cent logistics, it would follow then that the only way to achieve this is through slick, efficient and effective logistics operations and more precisely, supply chain management.
It seems that more than 100,000 people have died and in excess of 500,000 have been displaced in Haiti.
Unfortunately many more deaths are expected. The graphic images broadcast to our living rooms have opened the wallets of individuals and governments.
Commercial supply chains focus on the final customer as the source of income for the entire chain. However, in humanitarian supply chains, the end user (the recipient or consumer of the aid) seldom enters into a commercial transaction and has little control over supplies.
Instead, “customer service” or “marketing” of the humanitarian service may need to target the supplier/donor, who has to be convinced that humanitarian action is taking place.
For example, there may be greater “humanitarian visibility” in providing food or medicine before basic logistical equipment such as forklifts, although the latter may be necessary for effective delivery of the former.
Co-ordination is central to a successful humanitarian supply chain. Logistics co-ordination between NGOs has improved in recent humanitarian operations, with sharing of equipment, assets or resources such as aircraft, trucks, food stores, forklifts etc.
Aid agencies receive many unsolicited – and sometimes even unwanted – donations. Unsolicited supplies in fact clog airports and warehouses and create redundancies.
Central to any relief operation is the establishment and management of an emergency supply chain which is often fragile and volatile. Provision of humanitarian aid generally, although not exclusively, takes place in locations where sophisticated logistics techniques are difficult to implement (such as Haiti) and which, therefore require some form of co- ordination between NGOs or between the host nation and the NGOs.
The speed of delivery of humanitarian aid after a disaster depends on the ability of logisticians to procure, transport and receive supplies at the site of a humanitarian relief effort.
Disaster relief operations struggle with very special circumstances though. They often have to be carried out in an environment with destabilised infrastructures, ranging from a lack of electricity supplies to limited transport infrastructure.
Furthermore, since most natural disasters are unpredictable (like Haiti), the demand for goods in these disasters is also unpredictable.
Emergency relief involves many of the same logistics processes encountered in the private sector, but modern logistics practices have only recently been applied to disaster aid and recovery.
The importance of logistics to humanitarian response cannot be ignored. Without the rapid establishment of supply and distribution channels for aid resources, the disaster will certainly be more protracted and damaging for the affected population.
Unfortunately, disaster relief is and will continue to be a growth market.
Both natural and man-made disasters are expected to increase fivefold over the next 50 years due to environmental degradation, rapid urbanisation and the spread of HIV/Aids in the developing world.
As a European ambassador at a post-tsunami donor conference said: “We don’t need a donor’s conference, we need a logistics conference.”
Graham Heaslip lectures in operations and supply chain management at the school of business and law in NUI Maynooth