Business processes in international humanitarian aid

International humanitarian aid provides assistance such as food, shelter, and health or counseling services across national boundaries to communities in need. Universally, international humanitarian aid organizations play a critical role, by supporting the survival and recovery of communities affected by crises such as natural disasters, conflicts or disease epidemics. In most instances the technological, human and financial resources of diverse countries are put together to support communities facing crises. These events, often require immediate action and long term support to sustain the community needs and are highly sensitive to the contexts in which the crisis incidents occur. Large amounts of funds and resources are received each year to support such initiatives and successfully distributing humanitarian aid is a complex operation. Given the size of the funds involved, the sheer complexity and criticality for fast, efficient and effective action in these initiatives, it is somewhat surprising that there is not much evidence of a business process focus by the humanitarian community. This chapter describes the core business of International Non Government Organizations (INGOs), depicts how the main aspects of Business Process Management manifest within INGO’s and points out the values and challenges of process centric approaches within international humanitarian aid organizations. The latter part of the chapter vividly illustrates these aspects using two example cases within the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.