Newton RCUK - TUBITAK : Innovating the Turkish Supply Chain for Services in Humanitarian Aid

For decades the humanitarian sector has mainly relied on providing material assistance to beneficiaries during disaster relief. These days there is a growing importance in the provision of services, not only by means of replacing the distribution of relief items by cash & vouchers that can be exchanged for goods as needed but also in the provision of supporting services such as health or education. These services can help stimulate local market activity and restart livelihoods.

In this project we aim to design and implement the supply chain for two key services to beneficiaries: cash & voucher distribution (as a replacement for distributing core relief items) and the provision of educational services. The project has been split up into three phases. In the first phase we aim to analyse the current refugee situation in Turkey, conduct interviews with agencies in the field on the current refugee situation in Turkey and on disasters in Turkey in the past (we have contacts with local agencies for this purpose - amongst others UNHCR and Turkish Red Crescent, both of which were unfortunately not able to provide a letter of support in time for this proposal). We furthermore perform desk research to collect information on the specifics of the refugee situation in Turkey and on past disasters.

In phase two we focus on the development and application operations research models to identify where and how to locate these services in order to provide optimal support to beneficiaries. In the design of cash and voucher supply chains we develop guidelines and tools on how to set up cash and voucher distribution points dependent on in-kind distributions while reducing travel times, waiting times, yet guaranteeing sufficient security. We furthermore develop guidelines and tools on supporting timely scale-up of cash and voucher distribution. In the part focused on integrated models for refugee camp location and mobile public services we develop a decision making methodology and supporting guidelines and tools for the camp site selection problem while considering the level of public services around the potential areas. With the help of this methodology, the selected camp sites will be in places where the city can accommodate public services when the need arises.

In phase III we aim to integrate the findings of both sub-projects and test the models on the Turkey case. We develop a framework how to monitor, measure and assess the impact of our findings on stakeholders, including ao. beneficiaries, local suppliers, donors, banks and other system providers, logistics services providers, government.