The humanitarian supply chain (HSC) is a strategic component of humanitarian logistics that oversees a large range of services from order/inventory management, including demand planning, sourcing and procurement, kit production, warehousing, shipping and import/export of relief items.
Over time, the HSC activities have increasingly engaged into contracting outsourced services including through commercial logistics providers, in addition to moving emergency goods across the borders and the frontlines.
Over time, the HSC activities have increasingly engaged into contracting outsourced services including through commercial logistics providers, in addition to moving emergency goods across the borders and the frontlines.
HSC’s primary goal should not be - as it is sometimes thought[1] - to respond to the needs of beneficiaries, but to satisfy orders issued by internal user departments, the vast majority of them coming from programmatic departments (medical, nutritional, WASH[2],..). This is why a humanitarian logistician is usually (and thankfully) not responsible for the identification of humanitarian needs, the definition of the type and quality of relief products to be ordered (except for orders for support activities), neither for the clarification of the final destination and timing of delivery.
The international supply of emergency operations is generally based on push strategies with air shipments of emergency kits from pre-positioned stockpiles to a delivery point near the disaster area, or to a staging area. An emergency kit brings together articles and modules that are necessary to rapidly support a certain number of victims who are facing a specific crisis situation (e.g. Ebola kit, vaccination kit, hospital kit).
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[1]See definition Thomas and Mizushima (2005)
[2]Water, Hygiene and Sanitation
The international supply of emergency operations is generally based on push strategies with air shipments of emergency kits from pre-positioned stockpiles to a delivery point near the disaster area, or to a staging area. An emergency kit brings together articles and modules that are necessary to rapidly support a certain number of victims who are facing a specific crisis situation (e.g. Ebola kit, vaccination kit, hospital kit).
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[1]See definition Thomas and Mizushima (2005)
[2]Water, Hygiene and Sanitation