Co‐ordinating humanitarian operations in peace support missions

Abstract

Purpose -This paper seeks to contribute to a more effective co-ordination of humanitarian operations by military and civilian organizations involved in a peace support mission in response to a complex emergency. Design/methodology/approach -The information processing view, in particular Galbraith's typology of generic mechanisms for achieving co-ordination, is taken as the theoretical framework. This framework is subsequently applied to the co-ordination of humanitarian operations by military and civilian organizations. Empirical data are derived from a set of expert interviews with both military and civilian respondents in The Netherlands and a four week visit to Kabul and Baghlan, a province in northern Afghanistan. During this visit 40 military respondents have been interviewed and over 60 meetings have been held with local authorities, humanitarian organizations, small entrepreneurs, refugees and local villagers. Finally, conclusions are drawn and recommendations are provided with regard to a more effective co-ordination of humanitarian operations in a peace support mission. Findings -The article's main finding is that "self-contained tasks" in combination with lateral relations are the dominant co-ordination mechanisms. "Slack resources", though observed in practice, is not considered a viable co-ordination mechanism since this implies an excess, and thus waste, of scarce resources. "Information systems" are, unfortunately, not well-developed leading to mismatches between policy and practice. Keeping "self-contained tasks" as the major co-ordination mechanism, the main recommendation is to develop and implement innovative "information systems", that can also be used to support "lateral relations", in particular those between military and civil actors. Originality/value -The paper applies the information processing perspective to a unique and important subject, namely co-ordination between military and humanitarian organizations in peace support missions.

Using the military in disaster relief: systemising challenges and opportunities

“…Pettit and Beresford (2005) also defend a humanitarian logistics framework combining military and NGO experience in cases of disaster relief and recovery. Military support for natural disasters are widely used due to the capacity and asset availability required to support the surge demands (Rietjens et al, 2007). Military organisations have the robustness to operate in harsh field conditions and are capable of 12-hour response operations on a large scale (Kov acs and Tatham, 2009).…”

“…Therefore the doctrines of intended deployments in the past have been quite distinctive but over the last decade many military doctrines have included humanitarian doctrinal aspects (Rietjens et al, 2007;Australian Army, 2009;Barber, 2011). In natural disasters -the focus of this paper -the doctrines of a deployed military force and the humanitarian community are more aligned than a complex emergency where there are distinct differences (Cross, 2012;Heaslip et al, 2012).…”

Improving civil–military coordination in humanitarian logistics: the challenge

“…Given the fundamental differences between commercial supply chains and humanitarian supply chains (Beamon, 2004;Kovács and Spens, 2007;Oloruntoba and Gray, 2006;Thomas and Kopczak, 2005;Van Wassenhove, 2006) and the similarities between humanitarian supply chains and military supply chains (Oloruntoba and Gray, 2006;Pettit and Beresford, 2005;Rietjens et al, 2007;Skoglund and Hertz, 2007;Tatham, 2006;Tysseland, 2007), a number of issues as presented in Table 1 have materialised. Kovács and Tatham (2009) demonstrated that both humanitarian and military supply chains in contrast to commercial supply chains have to plan to respond for what they view as inevitable events such as natural or complex disasters.…”

“…The need for better coordination according to Whiting and Ayala-Ostrom (2009) is particularly compelling due to the logistics expenditure consumes up to 40% of the total humanitarian aid budgets. Rietjens et al (2007) argue conflicting objectives between humanitarian organisations and military often leads to resource wastage as relief agencies and military units undertake similar operations. This duplication is not only prevalent between NGOs and military but also between different NGOs.…”

“…To ensure optimal resource usage, they argue that the military involvements should adopt a subordinate role to the humanitarian lead agency. Nevertheless they acknowledge that the humanitarian agency needs to be present to provide appropriate guidance, and this is often not possible as the military forces are the units first to reach the disaster area with air support and relief provisioning (Rietjens et al, 2007).…”