Humanitarian Supply Chain (HSC)

                               

December 26, 2004 a day not to be forgotten in History, Yes we are talking about the massive tsunami which swept millions of lives and livelihood of people of South East Asia. True that during natural calamities like tsunami, we witness the damage it causes, the pain it leaves and certainly the lives it takes but now let us witness some lessons it teaches.

Humanitarian Supply Chain, a connecting thread between the donor and the beneficiary acts a relieving point in minimizing the human suffering and the loss.  The core activity of the Humanitarian Supply Chain is to provide the indispensable needs to the vulnerable groups as promptly as they can while the way they execute underlies certain predominant differences between commercial supply chain and HSC which opens up today's learning on Supply Chain . 

                            

Let us unwind the Humanitarian Supply Chain by starting to comprehend different players of the relief value chain of Tsunami 2004, and they were Donors, Humanitarians, Governments, Military and the Beneficiaries. And the engagement of these stakeholders can be implicated with relief value chain model developed by fritz institute in the year 2004

The operation of HSC  commences with preparedness stage which  acts beyond any specific disaster, it is the ready set stage set by the country’s Government to handle to the uncertainties, whereas the assessment stage is more specific to the type of disaster and to the region affected. In 2004 Tsunami, the major needs that were assessed for:  food, water, medicines, temporary tents and not clothes, winter jackets or canned food. After the assessment was done the humanitarians collected the goods from the various Donors fragmented throughout the globe.

When the goods were ready to be shipped; the ports and airports were opened and was fully packed with resources to receive the goods and to transfer it to the local logisticians. The area of beneficiaries who were to receive the goods were mapped by the regional Government. And these beneficiaries of damaged areas received the materials and food as per the prior mapping through the enabled military and Para military forces.Though the Humanitarian Supply Chain aimed to deliver the goods at greater promptness it suffered various major weaknesses during 2004 calamity and they were:

·   1.Transfer of unsolicited goods

·   2.Transfer of unsuitable goods

·   3.In adequate assessments

·  4. Lack of tools and technology to track

·   5.Co ordination and collaboration

Especially, Unsolicited and unsuitable donations wasted time and effort that went back in bringing them to the beneficiaries. In certain cases, the process of assessment took more time hence planning the blueprint delayed which caused the beneficiaries to suffer for few days without much medical or material support.  Like any other commercial supply chain, Humanitarian Supply chain posses  the relief chain model that came into existence and practice in 2004, where it stands as a benchmark for building further models. #Happy_Learning 4