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The purpose of this paper is to highlight the importance of the humanitarian supply chain (HSC) as the backbone of the humanitarian operations. It further proposes feasible ways to overcome some of the main supply chain challenges identified by practitioners to achieve cost efficient and effective operations.

The challenges that the HSC faces and proposed changes to overcome them are gathered from interviews with nearly 40 practitioners.

Five critical issues that affect the future of HSCs are identified along with recommendations to address them.

It supports the fulfillment of the agenda for humanity’s five core responsibilities: global leadership to prevent and end conflict, uphold the norms that safeguard humanity, leave no one behind, change people’s lives – from delivering aid to ending need, and invest in humanity.

The original report was presented at the first World Humanitarian Summit in Istanbul in May 2016. The reader can find it via the following link www.logcluster.org/sites/default/files/whs_humanitarian_supply_chain_paper_final_24_may.pdf

The purpose of this paper is to bring a communication management perspective to how nations might use their involvement in humanitarian responses to refugee crisis in attempts to improve their global standing through a case study of Turkish efforts during the Syrian Civil War.

In order to assess the context of Turkey’s attempts to communicate its humanitarian response to the Syrian refugee crisis and its political discourse, the authors use a two-level analysis. The authors utilize a framing analysis and the informational framework of public diplomacy. The authors conduct a framing analysis of 14 speeches delivered by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavusoglu at various international platforms in order to determine the frames and the information frame strategies employed. The authors investigate how Turkey managed its communication efforts and the ways in which the frames are used to reflect Turkey’s nation brand.

The analysis indicates that Turkey uses three frames: benevolent country, righteous side, and global power. These frames indicate that Turkey sees the refugee crisis as a problem resulting from the inefficiency of the international community and presents the “Turkish model” as the benevolent and righteous example to overcome these inefficiencies. Based on the information framework strategies used, it can be argued that the positive impact of these frames on the Turkish brand will be limited to certain audiences mainly due to the communication priorities of the country.

This study provides a novel communication management outlook on humanitarian aid and public diplomacy through an analysis of Turkey as an illustrative case exemplifying communication of development. This study also demonstrates a framework to assess the communication management strategies of other nations that are encountering global refugee crisis and similar humanitarian relief efforts.

Achieving localisation (the transfer of control to local actors) has proven extremely challenging in the development sector, and the humanitarian sector appears to be facing equal challenges. This chapter seeks to engage with that struggle and examine why this lesson has been so difficult to learn. Drawing on conference workshops and 10 key informant interviews, this paper examines the obstacles and opportunities for localisation, seeking to understand what makes it so hard for those who hold disproportionate power in humanitarian encounters to hand over power. The authors found a clear sense of localisation being a process rather than an outcome; optimism that momentum is slowly gathering towards this process, and a clear sense of the steps required to fully achieve it. Examining practitioners’ perspectives in this way adds an important voice to discussions of humanitarian practice.

The research objective is to study the relevance of supply chain management in the humanitarian context, analyze supply chain expenditures and identify major cost-saving potentials and future research directions.

Our research design integrates exploratory and inductive research approaches that are based on existing literature, discussions with supply chain leaders and extensive financial data collected through field studies.

Supply chain management is increasingly considered as a critical success factor for humanitarian operations and amounts on average to around 75% of the total response cost. Based on our findings, humanitarian supply chains bear tremendous potential for further improvements to provide more assistance with limited resources available.

In particular, humanitarian supply chains in conflict situations and procurement processes offer potential for impactful and relevant research. Whilst our study focuses on international organizations, future research should give more attention to supply chain cost structures of local actors to reveal further untapped potential.

Our findings equipped supply chain leaders with fact-based evidence of the value of supply chain management and supported them in strategic meetings with their executive management and donors. Furthermore, we identified major cost-saving potentials.

For researchers (and practitioners), our findings serve as motivation to intensify their efforts in studying and enhancing supply chain management in the humanitarian context.

This paper fulfils an identified need to study and provide empirical evidence of the value of supply chain management in the humanitarian context.

This study explores the evolving dynamics of participatory accountability within humanitarian contexts, where digitally connected crisis-affected populations demand better accountability from aid organisations, and as a result, shift traditional hierarchies and relationships between humanitarian agencies and beneficiaries.

This study employs a case study approach, focussing on the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), to investigate how participatory accountability manifests outside formal practices and re-emerges in social media spaces. The study analyses internal organisational challenges and explores the implications of digital platforms on humanitarian practices. The authors employ Chouliaraki and Georgiou's (2015, 2019, 2022) networks of mediation, particularly intermediation and transmediation, to understand how digital expressions translate to offline contexts and reshape meanings and actions.

The study reveals that social media platforms enable beneficiaries to demand participatory accountability beyond traditional practices, democratising humanitarian response and challenging power structures. These effects are multifaceted, introducing enhanced democratic and inclusive humanitarian aid as well as new vulnerabilities. Digital intermediaries and gatekeepers play pivotal roles in curating and disseminating crisis-affected voices, which, when transmediated, result in nuanced meanings and understandings. Positive effects include capturing the potential of digital networks for democratic aid, while negative effects give rise to moral responsibilities, necessitating proactive measures from the ICRC.

This study contributes to the literature by highlighting the impact of digital technology, particularly social media, on participatory accountability. It expands the understanding of the evolving landscape of accountability within the humanitarian sector and offers critical insights into the complexities and dual purposes of participatory accountability in contexts of resistance. Employing Chouliaraki and Georgiou's networks of mediation adds depth to the understanding of digital technology's role in shaping participatory practices and introduces the concept of transmediation as a bridge between digital expressions and tangible actions.