Resilience in Disaster Relief and Development Supply Chains - Managing Challenges of Climate Change, Urbanisation and Security

Project participants

The project is carried out at the HUMLOG Institute at the Hanken School of Economics and it is funded by the Academy of Finland. Other project participants include:

• Clark University (USA),
• CSIR (South Africa),
• Högskolan i Borås, the University of Borås, (Sweden)
• International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, East Africa (IFRC East Africa)
• Massachusetts Insitute of Technology, MIT (USA),
• National University of Ireland, Maynooth (Ireland),
• Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre (the Netherlands),

The research aim

Supply chain resilience has gained attention in recent years as a concept to respond to disruptions in the supply chain. Disruptions can be of operational-technical nature or also include political instability, natural disasters, and complex emergencies. Disaster relief has therefore come to embrace the concept of supply chain resilience as well. Resilience in the disaster relief and development context refers to both the overall management of humanitarian supply chains, but also to the responsiveness to particular challenges these supply chains are exposed to. Current challenges lie in three major areas: changing climate risk, urbanisation, and security.