Coordination in humanitarian relief chains: Practices, challenges and opportunities

Humanitarian relief environments engage a large number and variety of actors, each with different missions, interests, capacity, and logistics expertise. While coordination mechanisms within the domain of commercial supply chain management have been well studied, coordination in humanitarian relief chains is still in its infancy. In this study, we review the challenges in coordinating humanitarian relief chains and describe the current and emerging coordination practices in disaster relief. We also examine some widely practiced supply chain coordination mechanisms and evaluate their adaptability to the unique relief environment.