Collaboration in Humanitarian Operations in the Context of the COVID-19 Pandemic

This chapter provides an overview of collaboration in humanitarian operations, focusing on the logistical aspects. Humanitarian logistics and operations has emerged as a sub-field of supply chain and operations management and studies how humanitarian organisations can be more efficient in the delivery of humanitarian aid. We review the key characteristics of this sub-field compared to traditional logistics and supply chain management. Collaboration is particularly important in the humanitarian context, in which only the collective performance of humanitarian organizations should count. We therefore discuss key factors of collaboration using the humanitarian SCOR model. Finally, we analyze how far the COVID-19 pandemic has forced humanitarian organizations to collaborate differently in their operations and what can be learnt from it for the future of humanitarian operations.