BookStation

 The past decades of humanitarian action have allowed for much reflection on the impact of logistics on humanitarian operations. Relief organizations, researchers and individual practitioners find themselves increasingly involved in the process of augmenting the effectiveness of aid by optimizing the internal processes of the relief supply chain. This conceptual study is a literature review with the purpose of investigating the challenges hampering humanitarian logistics. As a starting point, this study introduces the reader to logistics management and then continues by connecting the commercial and humanitarian logistics principles and procedures. The study reviewed a large amount of the literature available and composed a coherent database which includes not only the innate challenges of the supply chain but also the challenges that relate to the complexity of the humanitarian aid context. At the same time, the author retained a critical stance with regard to the roots of the problems, as well as their systemic underpinnings. Finally, the paper reveals a series of measures and methods of improving humanitarian logistics' internal processes and outcomes. The principal conclusion is that further research on the topic should be conducted with the primary objective of analyzing, on a greater scale, the correlation between operational design and management with logistics planning and realization. Nevertheless, this world of humanitarian 'internal processes', as presented by this book, remains a highly interesting focal point for all humanitarian aid workers.