Catholic Relief Services, a not-for-profit agency that funds development programs and humanitarian relief efforts throughout the world, faces a challenging budget-allocation problem annually. We developed a mathematical model and a spreadsheet tool that allocates available funds based on the impact these investments will have in different countries. The model ensures a fair allocation to countr...

Note: In this column, the author describes some of the experiences of a medicalsurgical nurse volunteer aboard the United States Navy Ship (USNS) Mercy. Mr. Yates served on the second Project HOPE (Health Opportunities for People Everywhere) rotation aboard the Mercy from February 26 to March 20, 2005. The earthquake and resulting tsunami of December 26, 2004, in the Indian Ocean affected 12 co...

Armed conflicts lead to the deterioration of living conditions civilians and deprive them basic necessities life, which may result in catastrophic human tragedies, due inability parties conflict provide goods services or obstruct that. Humanitarian relief work provided by states humanitarian organizations comes as a decisive necessary tool preserve The health, dignity these people, this is subj...

Humanitarian logistics is a major factor for the success of humanitarian operations, making use of a broad range of infrastructure and resources in highly unstable and volatile environments. Due to the need for accuracy and timeliness, the information must be updated and related to the real variables of the affected area. In this context, volunteered geographic information (VGI), providedby loc...

Large scale Humanitarian Assistance/Disaster Relief (HA/DR) operations often require the intervention and aid of various agencies from all over the world. As a result, HA/DR operations involve many negotiation and coordination issues. Although a number of studies have emphasized computer assistance for negotiations, it remains unclear how such information and communication technology could be e...

Abstract—This paper proposes a mathematical model and examines the performance of an exact algorithm for a location– transportation problems in humanitarian relief. The model determines the number and location of distribution centers in a relief network, the amount of relief supplies to be stocked at each distribution center and the vehicles to take the supplies to meet the needs of disaster vi...

One of the challenges of humanitarian organizations is that there exist limited decision technologies that fit their needs. It has also been pointed out that those organizations experience coordination difficulties with volunteers willing to help. The purpose of this paper is to help address those challenges through the development of a decision model to assist in the management of volunteers. ...

Smartphones are becoming increasingly useful in disaster management both to provide useful information to victims and to coordinate relief operations. However, a lack of technological expertise as well as considerable amount of time and cost required to build mobile applications prevents the rapid deployment of useful applications by humanitarian organizations for different crises. In this pape...

Purpose The stakeholders are now demanding more visibility and role clarity in the emergency supply chain to improve collaborative efforts. Using a contingent resource-based view (C-RBV), author studies crisis leadership as complementary organizational resource for successful adoption of digital technologies (DTs) chain. further examined relationships between DTs on information collaboration un...