EURO 2024 Copenhagen
Abstract Submission

EURO-Online login

1762. United Nations Humanitarian Response Depot’s Food Support in South Asia via Multi-stage Stochastic Programming

Invited abstract in session MD-21: Site selection and aid allocation in humanitarian operations, stream OR in Humanitarian Operations (HOpe).

Monday, 14:30-16:00
Room: 49 (building: 116)

Authors (first author is the speaker)

1. Ruoyu Hu
Business School, the University of Edinburgh
2. Douglas Alem
Business School, University of Edinburgh
3. Aakil Caunhye
The University of Edinburgh

Abstract

As one of the largest humanitarian logistics supply chains, the task for United Nations Humanitarian Response Depot (UNHRD) is how to allocate relief aid to save more people who suffered from disasters. This task is particularly challenging in areas like South Asia, where food aid efforts are confronted with complex transportation conditions, significant economic disparities, and the frequent occurrence of disasters, not to mention that relief aid resources are often scarce. In this research, we develop a novel Multi-stage Stochastic Programming (MSP) model to help UNHRD support critical decisions regarding site selection and aid allocation. Differently from the main literature where these decisions are often made within a two-stage paradigm, our three-stage perspective takes into account relief aid donation campaigns that are triggered depending on the disaster impact and its effects. Our objective function maximizes coverage weighted by the population profile, leveraging suitability indicators from locations to enhance strategic decisions on aid distribution. The results overall highlight the role of donated food aid in settings with severe constraints, demonstrating the MSP model's effectiveness in enhancing strategic response through staged information processing. This approach not only illustrates the model's adaptability in complex disaster scenarios but also its capacity to mitigate uncertainties in aid demand coverage, even when increases in coverage are marginal.

Keywords

Status: accepted

Back to the list of papers