Humanitarian supply chain: an analysis of operations in natural disasters

Abstract

This paper presents an analysis of the logistical processes adopted in response operations to six natural disasters that occurred between 2000 and 2011: Mozambique (2000), Indian Ocean (2004), Pakistan (2005), Haiti (2010), Japan (2011), and Brazil (2011). The selection of the studied events was based on the extent of their impact, considering the number of casualties and the number of victims affected by the disaster. Based on an analysis of secondary data, the best practices, the problems that occurred and the main challenges of these humanitarian operations are identified. As a result, suggestions are proposed to improve the effectiveness and the success rate of the logistics process in other humanitarian response operations. Finally, this study contributes to the identification of procedures that can serve as the basis for the development of more effective models for the response operations of similar events.

Keywords
Humanitarian logistics; Natural disasters; Humanitarian response operations