TY - GEN

T1 - Big data and humanitarian supply networks: Can Big Data give voice to the voiceless?

AU - Monaghan, Asmat

AU - Lycett, Mark

PY - 2013

Y1 - 2013

N2 - Billions of US dollars are spent each year in emergency aid to save lives and alleviate the suffering of those affected by disaster. This aid flows through a humanitarian system that consists of governments, different United Nations agencies, the Red Cross movement and myriad non-governmental organizations (NGOs). As scarcer resources, financial crisis and economic inter-dependencies continue to constrain humanitarian relief there is an increasing focus from donors and governments to assess the impact of humanitarian supply networks. Using commercial (‘for-profit’) supply networks as a benchmark; this paper exposes the counter-intuitive competition dynamic of humanitarian supply networks, which results in an open-loop system unable to calibrate supply with actual need and impact. In that light, the phenomenon of Big Data in the humanitarian field is discussed and an agenda for the ‘datafication’ of the supply network set out as a means of closing the loop between supply, need and impact.

AB - Billions of US dollars are spent each year in emergency aid to save lives and alleviate the suffering of those affected by disaster. This aid flows through a humanitarian system that consists of governments, different United Nations agencies, the Red Cross movement and myriad non-governmental organizations (NGOs). As scarcer resources, financial crisis and economic inter-dependencies continue to constrain humanitarian relief there is an increasing focus from donors and governments to assess the impact of humanitarian supply networks. Using commercial (‘for-profit’) supply networks as a benchmark; this paper exposes the counter-intuitive competition dynamic of humanitarian supply networks, which results in an open-loop system unable to calibrate supply with actual need and impact. In that light, the phenomenon of Big Data in the humanitarian field is discussed and an agenda for the ‘datafication’ of the supply network set out as a means of closing the loop between supply, need and impact.

KW - humanitarian supply networks

KW - supply chain

KW - humanitarian logistics

KW - datafication

KW - big data

M3 - Conference contribution

SP - 432

EP - 437

BT - Global Humanitarian Technology Conference (GHTC)

PB - IEEE Xplore

T2 - Global Humanitarian Technology Conference (GHTC)

Y2 - 20 October 2013 through 23 October 2013

ER -