Location and size of warehouse

Amount of inventory to be kept in warehouses (based on population density parameters)

Strategic partnerships as well as legal support to gather supplies quickly
     * Includes supplier selection and facility location decisions
     * Quality checks and packaging are important criteria

Quick and effective transport
     * again local transport agencies need to be partnered with

Way of disbursement of supplies

Lead time to start operations

Time/unit rescue bag

% Supplies effectively disbursed

The generic strategy map is shown in the figure below: -

After disaster has struck, emergency relief should be based on a thorough assessment of survivors’ needs and capacities. However, numerous evaluations have shown that agencies often base initial relief distributions on guesswork, without establishing accurate information on needs. The reasons for this include: competition between agencies, pressure from the media and donors, and the arrival of planeloads of relief items which need shifting into the field. As a result, the needs of some vulnerable groups can be missed. A key lesson from the tsunami is that agencies must find better ways of combining emergency response with rapid, participatory needs assessments³.

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3 http://www.redcross.int

* Contributed by: -
Abhishek Siroya & Hemant Joshi,
IIM Lucknow.