Pan-american health organization’s humanitarian supply management system: de-politicization of the humanitarian supply chain by creating accountability

Abstract

The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) has developed a humanitarian supply management system (SUMA) that records, tracks and reports the flow of donations and purchased goods into a disaster area. While a lot of the received goods are in-kind donations, there is a procurement process triggered by the cash funds to meet specific needs. This procurement process also needs to comply with the humanitarian principles, and is therefore susceptible to manipulations from different stakeholders. SUMA has contributed to all the different deployments with the ability to build transparency and accountability in complex operations. These two contributions help to isolate the political factors from the supply chain and protect the humanitarian principles and space.