Humanitarian Relief Organizations Research Articles

Usability Survey on Integrated Support System for Flood Disaster Management

Recovery and response in managing flood disaster requires effective communication system for information sharing and coordination between agencies. However, the flood rescue and relief operations in Malaysia is yet inefficient due to decentralised management system between humanitarian relief organisations. Hence, this study attempt to contribute through information technology solution by integrating roles of different agencies such as Ministry of Health (KKM), Malaysian Department of Social Welfare (JKM), Malaysian Meteorological Department (JMM) as well as nonprofit organisations (NGOs) in managing flood victim. Therefore, Waterfall methodology has been adopted in developing an online flood integrated support system for mitigating, preparing, responding, and recovering flood management process. The system acts as a centralised platform for flood rescue voluntary, disseminates flood-related information updates, and manage flood victim health status particularly in the Segamat district of Johore. An online usability survey by purposive sampling has been conducted with 30 public citizens representing prospectives system users. In addition, three individuals from flood management agencies are selected to represent the system administrator for evaluating the system usefulness through USE questionnaire. Findings for the usability survey suggested that the system usability is satisfactory. Likewise, while the admin features have been satisfactorily rated based on the USE questionnaires with some suggestions for future improvement. Extending the system features in managing registration and aid for the victims in the flood evacuation centre is recommended for future work.

Developing a trusted human-AI network for humanitarian benefit

Artificial intelligences (AI) will increasingly participate digitally and physically in conflicts yet there is a lack of trusted communications with humans for humanitarian purposes. For example, in disasters and conflicts messaging and social media are used to share information, however, international humanitarian relief organisations treat this information as unverifiable and untrustworthy. Furthermore, current AI implementations can be brittle, with a narrow scope of application and wide scope of ethical risks. Meanwhile, human error can cause significant civilian harms even by combatants committed to compliance with international humanitarian law. AI offers an opportunity to help reduce the tragedy of war and better deliver humanitarian aid to those who need it. However, to be successful, these systems must be trusted by humans and their information systems, overcoming flawed information flows in conflict and disaster zones that continue to be marked by intermittent communications, poor situation awareness, mistrust and human errors. In this paper, we consider the integration of a communications protocol (the ‘Whiteflag protocol’), distributed ledger ‘blockchain’ technology, and information fusion with artificial intelligence (AI), to improve conflict communications called “Protected Assurance Understanding Situation & Entities” (PAUSE). Such a trusted human-AI communication network could provide accountable information exchange regarding protected entities, critical infrastructure, humanitarian signals and status updates for humans and machines in conflicts. Trust-based information fusion provides resource-efficient use of diverse data sources to increase the reliability of reports. AI can catch human mistakes and complement human decision making, while human judgment can direct and override AI recommendations. We examine several realistic potential case studies for the integration of these technologies into a trusted human-AI network for humanitarian benefit including mapping a conflict zone with civilians and combatants in real time, preparation to avoid incidents and using the network to manage misinformation. We finish with a real-world example of a PAUSE-like network, the Human Security Information System (HSIS), being developed by USAID, that uses blockchain technology to provide a secure means to better understand the civilian environment.

Sustainable Warehouse Location Selection in Humanitarian Supply Chain: Multi-Criteria Decision-Making Approach

The frequency of catastrophic natural disasters is rising, and much emphasis is being given to the Humanitarian Supply chain (HSC). The main goal of relief efforts is to get enough emergency supplies to the area hit by the disaster as quickly as possible. The decision of where to locate warehouses that will store relief supplies presents a significant obstacle for humanitarian relief organizations as they work to enhance their capacity for providing aid and their rescue plan. A non-optimal location could make the search and rescue efforts harder. More importantly, it has been seen that when these kinds of geographical sites are evaluated, social and environmental issues are not considered. This research paper aims to make humanitarian networks more accountable by determining the ideal warehouse site and considering both traditional and sustainable factors. A framework for selecting warehouses to keep relief goods was devised using the Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) approach. Best-Worst and TOPSIS (“Technique for Order Performance by Similarity to the Ideal Solution”) methods were used to rank the potential locations based on Cost, Logistics, Environmental, and Social Criteria. A research study has been done in the State of West Bengal (District Arambagh).

A two-phase combinatorial double auction and negotiation mechanism for socialized joint reserve mode in emergency preparedness

Natural disasters seriously threaten the safety of human life and property. In order to provide sufficient emergency supplies instantly after disasters, it is necessary to reserve them in advance. The socialized joint reserve mode (SJRM) for emergency supplies has increasingly become a meaningful way to improve emergency preparedness capacity. Aiming to establish a market-oriented trading method of reserve services and allocate them efficiently, this research designs a two-phase combinatorial double auction and negotiation mechanism. The specific objective of this mechanism is to determine the transaction relationship, quantity, and price. In the first phase, the government, humanitarian relief organizations (HROs), enterprises and supermarkets constitute reserve service transaction's demand and supply sides. Their benchmark bidding strategy is given, and winners are determined by maximizing social surplus. In the second phase, the winners hold negotiations to discuss the supply priority of emergency materials and determine the trade quantity and price of the future. The negotiation contains two situations: oversupply and short supply. The decision-making results of the buyer and the seller are given respectively. A numerical example and sensitivity analysis are proposed to show the process and results of the auction and negotiation. The research shows that the mechanism designed in this paper can achieve the cooperation of multiple buyers and sellers in multiple periods. It proves that applying auction theory to emergency management practice has good feasibility and applicability.

Supply Chain Management Practice and Its Impact on Performance of Humanitarian Relief Organization in Case of Gedeo Zone

Abstract: Purpose: The purpose of this study was to see how supply chain management practices affected humanitarian relief organizations in the Gedeo zone. Research methodology: The study used a mixed research approach, with respondents selected using a stratified proportionate technique from each organization's employees to disseminate a questionnaire and semi-structured interviews done using a purposeful sampling technique. Correlation and regression, as well as thematic analysis, were used in the analysis. Results: The finding of the study reveals that supplier integration, information sharing, postponement, and outsourcing affect humanitarian relief organizations’ performance positively in a statistically significant way. Limitations: The main limitation is that the study focused only on humanitarian relief organizations operating in the Gedeo zone. Contribution: Ethiopia experienced natural and human-made disasters such as (El Niño, flood, famine, war, communal conflict, etc) for decades. To reduce the threat of this, the Study suggests that supply chain management practice is a serious concern for many relief humanitarian organizations operating in the Gedeo zone. Keywords: 1. supply chain management practice 2. humanitarian relief 3. organization performance

Performance indicators for humanitarian relief logistics in Taiwan

The purpose of this work is to explore the international humanitarian relief organizations in Taiwan, and find the most crucial performance indicators of humanitarian logistics, according to the experience and opinion of those large NGOs in Taiwan. The research gathered detailed information on situations from literature and collected the data by questionnaire. Based on the information gathered from questionnaires, quantitative weight was calculated through the participation of experts by using AHP in this research. According to the humanitarian relief organizations' experiences and opinion in this research, the most critical performance indicators in humanitarian relief logistics is responsiveness, and the following is agility, reliability, cost, and dialog with authorities. Although the AHP method has been applied in many research of performance indicators chosen, there is no research using AHP to prioritize the performance indicators in the humanitarian logistics field, especially in Taiwan. Future research could include the smaller or reputable organizations in Taiwan to get more comprehensive opinions. Besides, the chosen indicators could be utilized in the actual case of humanitarian rescue action.

A tripartite evolutionary game model of emergency supplies joint reserve among the government, enterprise and society

Natural disasters seriously threaten the security and stability of human society. After natural disasters occur, humanitarian rescue is the top priority to prepare sufficient emergency supplies and send to disaster areas. However, many disaster relief practices worldwide show that there is always a huge supply gap in the initial stage. It is difficult to meet the tremendous materials demand of the disaster area only by separate reserve from the government or humanitarian relief organizations (HROs). Because of this problem, this paper takes emergency supplies joint reserve mode (ESJRM) as the research subject, and explores the specific conditions and influencing factors of realizing government-enterprise cooperation by establishing a tripartite evolutionary game model of the government, enterprise and society. We aim at obtaining the evolutionary stable strategy (ESS) of this tripartite evolutionary game system. It is found that the equilibrium of tripartite strategy is affected by income variables, cost variables, initial willingness and stakeholder behaviors. Focusing on these influences, we put forward some management inspirations and suggestions. This paper makes a preliminary exploration of the conditions of ESJRM, which is conducive to providing theoretical guidance for the practice of emergency supplies reserve.

\u201cWe assist the health system doing the work that should be done by others\u201d \u2013 a qualitative study on experiences of grassroots level organizations providing refugee health care during the 2015 migration event in Germany

BackgroundIn Germany, the 2015 mass displacement and resulting population migration exposed regulatory and structural shortcomings with respect to refugee healthcare provision. Existing research on Germany’s crisis response has largely focused on the roles played by public and health system actors. The roles and contributions of non-governmental actors operating at the grassroots level have so far been given little attention. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the involvement of grassroots level actors with refugee healthcare provision in Germany.MethodsIn 2017, we conducted in-depth interviews with 13 representatives of different non-governmental organizations providing refugee healthcare provision in Germany. This included humanitarian relief organizations operating at the grassroots level that offer various forms of medical and psychological care. Transcribed interview content was analyzed using both deductive and inductive coding approaches.ResultsGrassroots level involvement changed over the course of the reporting period. During the initial emergency response, locally organized groups supported federal states and municipalities to guarantee the provision of legally defined refugee healthcare. During the following less acute phase, grassroots organizations attended to health needs of refugees the public health system was unable to address due to legal or structural limitations. In the subsequent integration phase, grassroots organizations shifted their relief focus towards care for the most vulnerable among refugees, including rejected asylum seekers and undocumented migrants with no or limited health coverage, as well as for those suffering from mental health problems.ConclusionGrassroots actors perceived their contributions largely as addressing those bottlenecks that resulted from healthcare restrictions imposed by German refugee legislation. Such bottlenecks could be addressed by offering those medical services for free that otherwise were not covered by law. Further, volunteers contributed to closing existing information and communication gaps between public actors, serving as intermediaries between public officials, healthcare providers, and refugee patients. To increase Germany’s efficiency and preparedness with respect to refugee healthcare, more integrated approaches at the local level, patient-centered interpretation and implementation of refugee law, and a stronger focus on post-traumatic mental health disorders should be considered.

A Bayesian Network Method for Humanitarian Supply Chain Performance Evaluation

The increasing risk of natural disasters has a direct impact on the survival of the affected people and further seriously jeopardizes the sustainability of the country's economic growth and development. The high volatility of disasters and the skyrocketing demand for relief operations pose enormous challenges to the humanitarian supply chain (HSC). At present, most developing countries lack resilient and effective HSCs. Therefore, in this work, by qualitatively tapping into HSC risk factors, a Bayesian Network (BN) model is developed for quantitatively evaluating the performance of HSC in the context of the rising threat of tropical cyclones in Zimbabwe. The BN model would also further help humanitarian relief organizations to gain some management insights.

AUTOMATED BUILDING SEGMENTATION AND DAMAGE ASSESSMENT FROM SATELLITE IMAGES FOR DISASTER RELIEF

Abstract. After a natural disaster or humanitarian crisis, rescue forces and relief organisations are dependent on fast, area-wide and accurate information on the damage caused to infrastructure and the situation on the ground. This study focuses on the assessment of building damage levels on optical satellite imagery with a two-step ensemble model performing building segmentation and damage classification trained on a public dataset. We provide an extensive generalization study on pre- and post-disaster data from the passage of the cyclone Idai over Beira, Mozambique, in 2019 and the explosion in Beirut, Lebanon, in 2020. Critical challenges are addressed, including the detection of clustered buildings with uncommon visual appearances, the classification of damage levels by both humans and deep learning models, and the impact of varying imagery acquisition conditions. We show promising building damage assessment results and highlight the strong performance impact of data pre-processing on the generalization capability of deep convolutional models.

Design and validation of an instrument for selecting spontaneous volunteers during emergencies in natural disasters

An instrument for selecting spontaneous volunteers can facilitate efficient decision making and management in large scale natural disasters. This study aimed to design and validate an instrument for selecting spontaneous volunteers during natural disasters in Chile. A mixed-methods study was realized. In the qualitative component, the instrument's items were derived from a competence profile for spontaneous volunteers, which was defined through interviews with disaster risk management experts. In the quantitative component, content validity was assessed measuring inter-rater (expert) agreement, and construct validity was determined by confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) in a sample of 117 volunteers in Chile, who answered the instrument. The instrument's preliminary version comprised 45 items and 5 dimensions of competence (knowledge, skills, behavior, motivation, and social desirability). The expert raters had a good degree of agreement (ICC = 0.581, p < 0.001), suggested the elimination of 10 items and the modification of 9 items. Finally, the CFA confirmed the 5-dimension structure for a total of 18 items. Fit was found to be adequate (χ2(125) = 145.38, p = 0.1027; RMSEA = 0.039; CFI = 0.938; and TLI = 0.924) and internal consistency was deemed acceptable (α = 0.74). The reliability and validity of the proposed instrument for selecting spontaneous volunteers suggests that it can be used to support the efforts of local humanitarian relief organizations.

A systematic review of cost-effective methods of international humanitarian response

Humanitarian relief organizations face many challenges due to the increasing number of both natural and man-made disasters such as drought, famine, war, and conflict. According to the United Nations, these challenges will continue to increase because of the risen vulnerability of humanitarian supply chains, especially regarding cost, accuracy, and duration. In this systematic review, we explore methods of lowering the cost of humanitarian responses, more specifically in regard to the education and training of aid workers.

Mobile Population Based Care Solutions from Canada and Finland

This paper investigates creative, mobile population-based medical solutions with integrated care delivery strategies in two different contexts. British Columbia’s two-truck mobile medical unit operates in both remote and highly urban environments in Canada, serving at-risk Canadian populations in areas ranging from remote First Nations communities to downtown Vancouver homeless people suffering from overdoses in the deadly Fentanyl crisis. The highly adaptable unit can mobilize at a day’s notice and can travel by road or by ferry. The other investigated mobile care solution is located in depopulating South Karelia in Finland, where a highly customized social and healthcare service for seniors has been created as part of the EKSOTE initiative. (EKSOTE stands for Etelä-Karjalan sosiaali- ja terveyspiiri – the South Karelia social and health district). The service provides public health services, urgent primary care, mental health services, chronic disease management, psychosocial rehabilitation, life skills training and assessment as well as home health support for seniors, populations at risk and clients in remote communities. Based on interviews with experts (clinical planners, public health managers) and an exploration of statistics and policy documents, we argue that both examples demonstrate different but exceptionally versatile mobile services with integrated care strategies provided by staff with broad-based competencies. Importantly, these units cover services that have been identified as significant gaps in care in rural or hard-to-reach populations that otherwise would remain untreated. Moreover, as accelerating urbanization is resulting in the depopulation of other areas, mobile services are a viable option in areas experiencing migration losses that no longer can support regular clinics. Income polarization and de-industrialization have increased homelessness, disenfranchisement, addictions and misery in urban areas. The approach of mobile services is by definition patient-centered care as the service is physically brought to the service user, and not the service user to the practitioner. The multi-disciplinary care offered automatically shifts towards a holistic direction as opposed to ‘pay for service’ systems where users can be limited on how many issues can be discussed during one consultation. Case management improves as different members of the care teams may all see the user on the same visit. We conclude that as a planning opportunity, by providing platforms and service networks that tie into existing (even diminishing) infrastructures, mobile, integrated care services provide important surge capacity and opportunities for highly customized services for clinics tailored to complex events and populations (refugees, outbreaks, events). Like humanitarian relief organizations such as Médecins Sans Frontières <https://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwisvovV1u_qAhWL_qQKHYsdCYsQFjAAegQIARAB&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.msf.org%2F&usg=AOvVaw1wofliiSKPaBTvJzXXAVND> (MSF), local mobile health services are also relevant in response to emergencies, natural disasters and adverse weather events.

Coopetition in temporary contexts: examining swift trust and swift distrust in humanitarian operations

PurposeBy drawing on commitment-trust theory, we examine the role of swift trust and distrust in supporting coopetition under conditions of uncertainty and interdependence in the setting of humanitarian disaster relief organisations.Design/methodology/approachThis paper presents findings from case studies of 18 international humanitarian relief organisations based on 48 interviews and the analysis of publicly available documents.FindingsWe find that both swift trust and swift distrust support coopetition. As coopetition is simultaneous cooperation and competition, in this study we show how swift trust and swift distrust also occur simultaneously in coopetitive contexts.Research limitations/implicationsCoopetition as a strategic choice is well-researched in the private sector, yet has received less attention in the nonprofit sector, particularly in contexts that are shaped by interdependence and uncertainty. We show the importance of swift trust and swift distrust in coopetitive relationships by drawing on commitment-trust theory.Practical implicationsIn focusing on a competitive environment in which cooperation is essential, we find limited choice of coopetitive partners. Humanitarian relief organisations must often simply work with whichever other organisations are available. We highlight how trust and distrust are not opposite ends of a spectrum and detail how both contribute to coopetitive relationships.Originality/valueOur findings contribute to commitment-trust theory by explaining the important role of distrust in forging coopetitive relationships. Furthermore, we contribute to prior work on coopetition by focusing on an uncertain and interdependent nonprofit environment.

Digitizing the field: designing ERP systems for Triple-A humanitarian supply chains

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to explore what design principles need to be considered in Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems for humanitarian organizations (HOs) to enable agile, adaptive and aligned (Triple-A) humanitarian supply chain capabilities and digitize humanitarian operations.Design/methodology/approachThis study follows an embedded case study approach with a humanitarian medical relief organization, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), which engaged in a multiyear ERP design at its humanitarian field missions.FindingsThis research shows that ERP systems for humanitarian organizations should be designed as unique systems addressing humanitarian organizations' challenges and unique missions, their value generation processes, and resource base in an effort to improve organizational performance. This study presents 12 general design principles that are unique for humanitarian organizations. These design principles provide a high-level structure of guidance under which specific requirements can be further defined and engineered to achieve success.Research limitations/implicationsThe results of this study are based on a single case study limiting generalizability. However, the case study was analyzed and presented as an embedded case study with five autonomous subunits using different business processes and following different adoption and implementation approaches. Therefore, the findings are derived based on considerable variance reflective of humanitarian organizations beyond MSF.Practical implicationsThis study recognizes that HOs have unique routines that standard commercial ERP packages do not address easily at the field level. The primary contribution of this research is a set of design principles that consider these unique routines and guide ERP development in practice. National and international HOs that are planning to implement information systems, private companies that are trading partners of HOs as well as vendors of ERP systems that are looking for new opportunities would all benefit from this research.Originality/valueThis study fills the gap in the humanitarian literature regarding the design of ERP systems for humanitarian organizations that enable Triple–A supply chain capabilities and it advances the knowledge of the challenges of ERP design by HOs in the context of humanitarian operations.

Humanitarian Relief and Development Organizations’ Stakeholder Targeting Communication on Social Media and Beyond

Nonprofit scholars have long considered stakeholder targeting communication (STC), an important mechanism of organizational accountability to meet stakeholders’ diverse interests and needs. However, research has yet to systematically examine the antecedents and outcomes of organizations’ STC to advance a more comprehensive understanding of how organizations manage accountability demands in the digital era. To address this gap, this study proposes a conceptual framework to explain how organizations’ STC on social media (SM) is shaped by STC via non-SM channels and their external communication capacity and the resulting STC outcomes in the SM domain. Survey data from 156 humanitarian relief and development organizations on four continents showed that using non-SM channels to engage various groups of stakeholders helped build organizations’ external communication capacity, which in turn helped improve their engagement in STC on SM. STC on SM further contributed to organizations’ success in information dissemination, community building, and action mobilization outcomes on SM.

Identification and prioritization of critical success factors in faith-based and non-faith-based organizations\u2019 humanitarian supply chain

In the last few decades, an exponential increase in the number of disasters, and their complexity has been reported, which ultimately put much pressure on relief organizations. These organizations cannot usually respond to the disaster on their own, and therefore, all actors involved in relief efforts should have end-to-end synchronization in order to provide relief effectively and efficiently. Consequently, to smoothen the flow of relief operation, a shared understanding of critical success factors in humanitarian supply chain serves as a pre-requisite for successful relief operation. Therefore, any member of the humanitarian supply chain might disrupt this synchronization by neglecting one or several of these critical success factors. However, in this study, we try to investigate how faith-based and non-faith-based relief organizations treat these critical success factors. Moreover, we also try to identify any differences between Islamic and Christian relief organizations in identifying and prioritizing these factors. To achieve the objective of this study, we used a two-stage approach; in the first stage, we collected the critical success factors from existing humanitarian literature. Whereas, in the second stage, using an online questionnaire, we collected data on the importance of selected factors from humanitarian relief organizations from around the world in collaboration with World Association of Non-Governmental Organizations (WANGO). Later, responses were analyzed to answer the research questions using non-parametric Binomial and Wilcoxon Rank-Sum tests. Test results indicate that for RQ1, two but all factors are significant for successful relief operation. For RQ2, we found significant differences for some CSF among faith-based and non-faith-based relief organizations. Similarly for RQ3, we found significant differences for some CSF among Islamic and Christian relief organizations.

Estimating urban population patterns from stereo-satellite imagery

ABSTRACTWith more than half of the world’s population living in towns and cities, urban areas get more and more into the focus of humanitarian relief organisations such as ICRC, Médecins sans Frontières (MSF), or SOS Children’s Villages. A key information required for almost any intervention is an estimation of the population numbers for the towns and cities where these organisations operate in. As census data are usually not available or outdated, population numbers have to be estimated by alternative methods such as remote sensing. To do that built-up densities are estimated from high-resolution image data and population numbers are disaggregated proportional to the densities in a top-down approach. Alternatively, population counts per density unit can be aggregated following a bottom-up approach. Both approaches were tested applying normalised Digital Surface Models (nDSM) derived from tri-stereo Pléiade images for Salzburg, Austria and Port-au-Prince, Haiti; the former for testing the quality and stability of the approach in a well-known setting, the latter for testing the approach in a critical environment. Key findings are that satellite-derived nDSMs provide sufficient accuracy for estimating population distributions, as long as reliable information is available for the separation of residential and non-residential urban areas.

A Risk‐Based Approach to Improving Disaster Relief Asset Pre‐Positioning

It is well‐recognized that pre‐positioning assets in advance of a natural disaster is important for supporting timely relief provision after a disaster occurs. In addition to preparing for imminent disaster events, humanitarian relief organizations also maintain such asset allocations over time to support future responses to recurrent events such as wildfires or winter storms. This study is motivated by the authors’ work with one such relief organization, the American Red Cross in Colorado and Wyoming, and it discusses a new mixed integer linear programming model that can help to more effectively pre‐position needed assets to open emergency shelters. The new model incorporates a measure of risk into its objective function, which helps address the need for generating equitable solutions, and the model explicitly considers reallocation of assets to nearby locations after a disaster event occurs. Model performance is first analyzed in the context of the Red Cross’ actual asset allocation problem and the results show a decrease in residual risk from that of historical allocations of more than 33%. The general applicability of the approach is then illustrated in the context of several different extensions to the base model and a series of important takeaways are presented and discussed.

Logistics service provider selection for disaster preparation: a socio-technical systems perspective

Since 1990s, the world has seen a lot of advances in providing humanitarian aid through sophisticated logistics operations. The current consensus seems to be that humanitarian relief organizations (HROs) can improve their relief operations by collaborating with logistics service providers (CLSPs) in the commercial sector. The question remains: how can HROs select the most appropriate CLSP for disaster preparation? Despite its practical significance, no explicit effort has been done to identify the criteria/factors in prioritizing and selecting a CLSP for disaster relief. The present study aims to address this gap by consolidating the list of criteria from a socio-technical systems (STS) perspective. Then, to handle the interdependence among the criteria derived from the STS, we develop a hybrid multi-criteria decision making model for CLSP selection in the disaster preparedness stage. The proposed model is then evaluated by a real-life case study, providing insights into the decision-makers in both HROs and CLSPs.