Abstract
Different forms of humanitarian crises are constantly occurring in various locations across the globe. The crisis can be attributed to natural or human- causes, nonetheless they cause a lot of harm to the community. Humanitarian crises are quite complex and in most cases, they occur in places that are hard to access. This paper will analyze the recent humanitarian crisis in an effort to explore crisis management adopted by humanitarian organization as well as developed nations. The paper will also explore the approaches employed by humanitarian organizations to deliver supplies to those affected by humanitarian crisis in inaccessible places.
Introduction
Every once in a while a single photo makes the world stop and pay attention to the people caught in the crossfire of a conflict or any form of humanitarian crisis. In 2016, the world was greatly astonished by the sad and disheartening pictures of children in Aleppo, in Northern Syria. In the battle between the rebels and loyalists in Syria, children, women and the elderly were adversely affected. Pictures of small children being retrieved in the rubbles of bombed structures attracted the world’s attention. However, there were other catastrophic humanitarian crises in 2016 that the world failed to hear about (Bowers, 2016). 2016 ended with approximately 65 million people being displaced out of their homes due to wars, civil unrests and other form of violent insurgencies. Bowers (2016) explores other dire situations in need of immediate humanitarian help. For example, the number of people facing life-threatening conditions in Yemen is too high such that the relief work is yet to make a real impact. More than half of Yemen’s population, over 14 million people, is unsure of where their next meal will come from. Violent conflict between the government and opposing forces in Yemen has destroyed infrastructure, the economy and social amenities. Bower (2016) also explores the critical humanitarian crises in Sudan and Lake Chad basin, caused by political violence and famine. Millions of people in those regions are dying because they do not have access to basic human needs.
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According to Bowers (2016) the United Nations announced a record humanitarian appeal for 2017 of $22.2 billion to support 93 million people in 33 nations across the globe. Humanitarian organizations like the United Nations, Mercy Corps, Red Cross, and UNICEF, among many others are now stretched more than ever. With humanitarian crises in different places across the world, these organizations have to manage their resources, personnel and processes well to assist many people as possible. Humanitarian organizations have to put in place effective crisis management plans to help them deal with new challenges in humanitarian coordination while maintaining accountability. Humanitarian organizations are now forced to learn, adapt and innovate to achieve greater impact and help many in need.
Crisis management is often used to address business-related crisis. Crisis management refers to the steps employed by organizations to mitigate the effects of a crisis. In case of a crisis, an organization must have a response plan, crisis assessment and evaluation team, and foster collaboration with all the stakeholders. These are important concepts that have been borrowed by humanitarian organizations to improve their response to humanitarian crises. Humanitarian crises are becoming more complex, and there is a need to adopt the best practices in assessing and responding to crisis to help those affected by the crisis better.
This research paper examines the crisis management efforts put in place by humanitarian organizations and how the efforts have helped the organizations to make a difference in the lives of individuals affected by crises. Hence the thesis statement, many nations rely on humanitarian disaster relief, exploring recent disasters that required humanitarian relief, I will examine how crisis management plays a major role in providing aid to areas not easily accessible.
Crisis Management by Humanitarian Organizations
Crisis management refers to the efforts put in place to mitigate the negative effects of a crisis. According to Burkle (2006) there is a need to define humanitarian assistance before addressing the issue of crisis management. Humanitarian assistance refers to the aid offered to the population affected by a crisis, with the main purpose of saving lives and alleviating human suffering. Humanitarian aid often focuses on victims of man-made and natural disasters. Man-made disasters tend to be political in nature, and they lead to massive deaths and displacement of people. Victims of catastrophic natural disasters such as earthquakes and tsunamis are also recipients of humanitarian aid. Humanitarian aid is also provided to individuals suffering the debilitating effects of poverty, famine and challenging environmental conditions.
On the other hand, humanitarian crisis management requires an agile response because the lives of many people are at stake. Humanitarian crisis management is often referred to as humanitarian disaster management, and it refers to a host of activities on site, and support activities off site aimed at mitigating the effects of the crisis (Salvado et al., 2015). The Red Cross defines disaster management as, “the organization and management of resources and responsibilities for dealing with all humanitarian aspects of emergencies, in particular preparedness, response and recovery in order to lessen the impact of disasters” (Red Cross, 2017). Communicating, information sharing and division of work between aid workers is necessary to ensure that the victims access the much needed emergency aid. Humanitarian assistance must be offered in accordance to the basic humanitarian principles of humanity, impartiality and neutrality (Burkle, 2006). Humanitarian organizations apply the humanitarian principles in planning and conducting their operations in places in need of humanitarian aid.
The expansive nature of humanitarian crisis makes it hard to apply the normal crisis management stages. According to Cozzolino (2012), crisis management is a process made up of four important stages: mitigation, preparation, response and reconstruction. However, in humanitarian crisis management, there are models that guide the crisis management for the specific crisis. The models of humanitarian crisis management depend on the type of crisis, needs assessment of the crisis and the type of humanitarian organization responding to the crisis. The first step in determining the crisis response model is by differentiating whether the crisis calls for disaster relief or continuous aid work. Starr & Van Wassenhove (2014) note that the models of crisis management adopted for small and medium scale crisis are different from the models used for the large scale crisis. For instance, sudden onset disasters like the earthquake in Haiti in 2010 called for large inflow of international humanitarian relief, whereas small scale disasters are often handled by local aid workers with the help of international humanitarian organizations (Starr & Van Wassenhove, 2014).
The needs assessment is used to gain a holistic understanding of the crisis and the needs of the affected people (United Nations Office of Coordination of Humanitarian Crisis, n.d). Humanitarian organizations have come up with an evidence-based assessment used to assess the crisis. In most cases, humanitarian agencies combine their efforts in conducting the needs assessment in an effort to get the real picture of the crisis and to strengthen coordination in responding to a humanitarian crisis. The results of the needs assessment will determine the response. Humanitarian organizations tend to put a lot of resources to sudden and deadly crisis.
According to Starr & Van Wassenhove (2014) humanitarian organizations like UN, OXFAM, the Red Cross among others, have established presence in many disaster-prone countries. This acts as the foundation for a crisis management process for the humanitarian organization. By establishing presence, the organizations are able to anticipate and react immediately in case of a crisis. Though humanitarian crisis is hard to predict in terms of the number of victims that will be affected, having aid workers on the ground when the crisis occurs makes it easy to get the real information that will guide the crisis management process. In an ongoing humanitarian crisis in Aleppo, humanitarian organizations like the United Nations were able to assist the victims of the crisis because they had established a presence in Aleppo (Al Jazeera, 2016). Though the organizations are facing notable challenges in Aleppo, for instance, killing of a few aid workers, they are still capable of delivering the much needed aid because of their presence in the region.
Models of Crisis Management
Burkle (2006), notes that the models of crisis management depend on the results of the needs assessment. The models measure the direct impact of the crisis, breakdown in health services and displacement of populations and the damage to the local infrastructure. The models also differ according to the role of the specific humanitarian organization, for example, the World Health Organization (WHO) has two important measures of a crisis; death rates and nutrition indices (Burkle, 2006). The three common models used to assess a crisis are: epidemiological model, developing nation model and the chronic country model. The epidemiological model is used to assess the immediate needs of the affected population to orient the humanitarian organizations on the immediate needs before a complete assessment is done. The developing nation model is often applied in developing nations in Africa and Asia characterized with acute-onset severe malnutrition and outbreak of communicable diseases. This model was applied in understanding the Ebola crisis in West Africa (Burkle, 2006). Lastly, the chronic country model is applied to ongoing crisis such as the Syria and Sudan. These nations share a history of chronic violence that has paralyzed the socio-economic and political development of the country. In such countries, humanitarian workers are the ones responsible for the provision of health care and basic social services for years.
The crisis model, the results of the needs assessment and the location of the crisis area determine the response model that will be used to address the crisis. Each humanitarian organization has procedures that guide how it responds to a crisis, but there are two common models of response to an international crisis: multinational response model and unilateral and coalition response model (Burke, 2006). The multinational response model is multinational, multi-agency and multi-organizational. The response team comprises of the UN and UN agencies, NGOs, and Donor countries. For example, in an article written by Karimi (2017) for CNN, the writer notes that the hunger and political instability in Somalia has put over 6 million citizens at risk of death due to starvation. Though a multi-national response model of crisis management has been in operation for years, the response team has not made much impact due to resistance from Al Shaabab militia and the inaccessibility of the people in need (Karimi, 2017). On the other hand, the unilateral response under the UN Charter refers to a situation whereby a single nation takes the responsibility of leading a crisis management effort in a nation with the help of humanitarian organizations. This strategy has been used widely by the U.S. in an effort to contain the humanitarian crisis in the Middle Eastern nations like Iraq.
As stated earlier on, different humanitarian organizations use different approaches. For example, according to the Red Cross (2017) the first people to respond to a crisis are those living in the local community. Red Cross adopted a community-based disaster preparedness approach, whereby the organization assists the community to reduce its vulnerability to disasters and strengthen its capacity to resist disaster. When the capacity of the community and the country to respond to the crisis is overwhelmed, upon request of the National Red Cross Society, the International Federation of Red Cross will use its regional and international networks, assets and resources to bring assistance to the people in crisis. It is worth noting that at international level, humanitarian organizations like Red Cross work with governments and international donors to improve crisis response and restore the dignity of the vulnerable people (Red Cross, 2017).
Humanitarian Logistics
An important aspect of crisis management is humanitarian logistics. Humanitarian logistics is responsible for the delivery of the required aid to individuals in need (Cozzolino, 2012). Cozzolino (2012) analyzes the response logistics applied in the 2004 earthquake and tsunami in South Asia that claimed 230,000 lives and displaced over 1.7 million people. Over 40 nations and 700 nongovernmental organizations provided humanitarian assistance. The humanitarian response was unprecedented, and the amount donated was approximated at $13 billion, making it the largest relief effort. The logistics of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami continue to attract praise because of the logistic speed and efficiency.
The crucial role of logistics in humanitarian aid operations cannot be underestimated. A well planned and executed logistics management delivers the required supplies on time to even the most inaccessible place, while reducing costs so that humanitarian organizations can serve as many people as possible. However, planning for the flow and storage of goods and materials is challenging as it involves complex systems, processes, people, resources and skills (Van Wassenhove, 2006). Maintaining an effective international supply chain is hard, especially when the supply chain routes have been disrupted by the crisis.
The humanitarian supply chain is made up of the following steps: supply acquisition and procurement, warehousing and transportation (Kovacs & Spens, 2007). The strategies for conducting these activities depend on the stage of the crisis. Humanitarian organizations are advised to start the procurement of resources as early as the preparation stage. Humanitarian organizations have aid workers at ground that can assess the situation to predict the demand for aid. The results of the initial assessment must be used to plan logistic operations, like stocking relief items, equipments and training relief personnel. In the preparation stage, humanitarian organizations will use less expensive means of transportation and warehousing because the supplies are not needed urgently. Additionally, earlier preparation gives the humanitarian organization the choice of procuring low cost supplies than when the organization implements its logistics operations during disaster response phase (Saksrisathaporn et al., 2016).
The logistics adopted depends on the stage of the crisis management cycle, made up of the preparation, response and reconstruction stages. For instance, during the response phase of the crisis, very effective logistics are employed to ensure speedy delivery of the necessary materials to save lives and mitigate the situation. At the response stage, the cost of transporting the materials is not considered an important factor because of the dire situation on the ground. The logistics approach adopted during the response approach must be complemented by the logistics approaches in the mitigation and preparation. In areas that are prone to humanitarian crisis, prior planning and collaboration with other stakeholders is necessary. For example, humanitarian organizations working to address the Sudan crisis can collaborate together, or work with the government, military, local NGOs and the private sector to secure effective and less costly logistics.
Humanitarian organizations can optimize the logistic performance by collaborating with the stakeholders to improve performance, eliminate redundancy and deal with location challenges. Reports show that logistics account for up to 80% of the overall expenditure for humanitarian agencies, the cost needs to be checked to ensure that more resources are actually used in helping those in need (Cozzolino, 2012). However, with enhanced collaboration, the cost of logistics can be reduced drastically. Each stakeholder has a role to play in the development of an effective humanitarian logistic. The local government in particular is responsible for activating the humanitarian stream. The local government is the first one to act in case of a crisis by authorizing crisis management and mobilizing the delivery of resources, without the authorization of the local government, foreign humanitarian organizations cannot initiate crisis management efforts. The local government can offer in kind support, in the form of local warehousing and transportation. It can also offer military support to humanitarian organization to deliver humanitarian aid to those in need in places that are difficult to access by the normal means of transportation.
The role of donors, other humanitarian organizations and the military cannot be underestimated. Though the humanitarian organization is responsible for delivering supplies to the people in need, donors are the ones who give the financial resources and in-kind donations such as transportation and storage facilities for the supplies (Kovacs & Spens, 2007). Other humanitarian organizations in the region can help each other to cut on logistic costs by combining their transportation and storage facilities, especially when they a temporary crisis that does not require the humanitarian organization to establish permanent structures. Most importantly, the role of the military in humanitarian logistics cannot be underestimated. The humanitarian relief effort has been interrupted on numerous occasions by the rebels in Aleppo (Al Jazeera, 2016). Vehicles carrying supplies have been bombed, destroyed and even stolen by the rebels who do not want the supplies to be accessed by their ‘enemies.’ Without the support of the military in war-torn regions like Somalia, Sudan, Yemen and Syria, the people in need cannot access the supplies.
How Humanitarian organizations Raise Funds
Humanitarian crisis management is impossible without funding. Private and public humanitarian programs rely on donors and other avenues of raising funds and collecting the necessary supplies for those in need (Powers, 2015). Crisis management efforts can be carried out by donor programs, UN programs, and local programs or NGOs, international NGOs such as the Red Cross or a combination of all these programs depending on the severity of the crisis.
According to Powers (2015) humanitarian organizations have access to a wide variety of funding, ranging from personal donation, corporations, foundations, religious organizations and governments. The type of the humanitarian organization determines the sources of funding, for example, there are organizations that do not accept government or corporate funding in an effort to stay independent in their decision making. Oxfam America and American Friends Service Committee do not accept government funding, but the majority of humanitarian organizations accepts government funding (Simard & Roeder, 2013).
Different humanitarian programs raise funds using different approaches. For example, UNICEF relies on the voluntary contribution of UN members, contributions from non governmental organizations, foundations, corporations and private individuals. As a body responsible for upholding human rights, UN members give contribution to the UN and UN humanitarian organizations such as UNICEF and WFP to fund humanitarian crisis management. Red Cross on the other hand, sources funds from voluntary contributions of states party to the Geneva Convention, National Red Cross Societies, supranational organizations such as the European Union, public and private sources. Humanitarian organizations are required to produce annual financial reports to show that they are being accountable and transparent with their finances (Simard & Roeder, 2013).
Though there are different sources of funding for humanitarian organizations, there is a shortage of funding due to the costly nature of humanitarian crisis management and the increasing cases of humanitarian crisis. Humanitarian organizations aim to solve different types of crisis, some organizations provide immediate humanitarian services such as food, clothing and medical supplies, while others provide infrastructure, advocacy and education (Powers, 2015). The situation in crisis prone areas like Syria, Sudan and Somalia are dire, such that the humanitarian efforts in place do not make much difference. In war-torn nations like South Sudan, the government is incapable of providing basic services like health and education; hence the people rely on humanitarian organizations to attain such services. Most humanitarian organizations are now sourcing for more funds to help the increasing number of victims of humanitarian crisis. The humanitarian organizations have resorted to more promising sources of funding in the private sector (Powers, 2015).
The Role of Developed Nations Humanitarian Crisis Management
Organizations from affluent nations are the ones championing humanitarian effort across the globe. According to Hofmann & Wisotzki (2014) affluent nations have a responsibility to play a bigger role in crisis management because of their advanced economies. Developing nations rely on affluent nations to help them solve different crises that they face, ranging from political instability, famine, and outbreaks of communicable diseases. According to Williamson (2010) $103.6 billion dollars of foreign aid flew into developing nations in 2006. In the past 50 years, foreign aid from affluent nations to developing nations total over $2.3 trillion (Williamson, 2010). The massive financial resources from affluent nations have helped in solving immediate and long term crisis, such as poverty.
Affluent nations use various avenues to aid crisis management efforts in developing nations. For instance, bilateral aid is commonly used by affluent nations to help developing nations and nations in crisis to manage the situation. Bilateral assistance is between two nations; however, they have political implications. Developed nations, particularly the U.S. and China have been accused of using bilateral aid to developing nations to advance their political agenda (Hofman & Wisotzki, 2014). Affluent nations have different policies to guide how bilateral assistance is offered to nations in crisis. For example, the U.S. ambassadors are required to release $50,000 in emergency aid in case of a crisis in the host nation. Bilateral assistance does not come in the form of financial support only; affluent nations also offer supplies and capacity to help address the crisis. Affluent nations have national humanitarian organizations created to help nations in crisis. For instance, the U.S. created the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to help administer foreign aid. Organizations such as SwissAid, EuropeAid, IrishAid and CIDA are other example of humanitarian organizations developed by affluent nations to address various forms of international crisis across the globe. Lastly, economic and politic blocs such as the European Union also play an important role humanitarian effort. The EU supports various humanitarian organizations and has come up with programs aimed at addressing different forms of humanitarian crisis.
Affluent nations can also offer direct assistance to local humanitarian bodies in disaster-affected countries through their national disaster management agencies. This approach is not commonly used because of the difference in statutory framework and disaster management approaches. However, it is the preferred choice when the affluent nation is offering operational assistance in terms of specialized teams, for example, emergency medical and search and rescue teams (Williamson, 2010).
Conclusion
Crisis management sums up all the activities aimed at preventing, improving community’s resiliency and offering support to those affected by a humanitarian crisis. Many nations are now affected by debilitating humanitarian crises that have led to loss of lives, destruction of socioeconomic infrastructure and stunted socioeconomic development.
Without humanitarian aid, many people would die due to lack of basic needs like food, shelter, clothing, water and healthcare; hence, the existence of various humanitarian organizations to address the growing humanitarian crisis. These organizations are responsible for the creation of models, processes and teams for delivering humanitarian aid to those affected by crises. There are different models used to evaluate a crisis, for instance, the epidemiological model is used to assess the immediate impact of the crisis on the population. The humanitarian organization can apply the epidemiological model to plan for emergency response. A comprehensive needs assessment must also be carried out to guide the response process.
The humanitarian logistics have notable effects on crisis management. A properly managed humanitarian logistics will ensure that those in need access the aid on time, consequently saving lives. But, the humanitarian logistics is responsible for almost 80% of humanitarian organization expenditure. Humanitarian organizations can reduce the amount spent on logistics through proper assessment, prior planning and through partnerships with other stakeholders. By partnering with other humanitarian organizations, governments, private sector and the local community, the humanitarian organization will have access to cheaper transportation and storage facilities.
Further research should be conducted on how to optimize humanitarian logistics to reduce costs and alternative sources of funding given the increasing number of people in need of humanitarian aid.
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