Basic logistics

[John Frum]

I've been doing relief work for a long time. I think I'm pretty good at getting NFIs from the warehouse into the hands of beneficiaries, but it's been a lot of learn-as-I-go, and much of that as trial-and-error.

I would like to hear the advice of others who have been in this longer and/or who have better experience or more formal education on

What are books or articles I should read to learn about the basics of proper humanitarian logistics?

Could you condense your advice or give me pointers here in Aidsource? 

Thanks,

John.

[Lisa F.]

I'm also wondering if anyone can suggest any education programs on logistics? Is there a "Bachelor of Logistics" program I'm just not finding?

[Michael Keizer]

There are a number of universities that have centres for humanitarian logistics. The most important ones are:

• Georgia Tech (US)
• MIT-Zaragoza (US/Spain)
• Hanken School of Economics (Finland)
• London School of Economics (UK)
• University of Lugano (Switzerland)

Outside universities, there are a couple of fairly well regarded courses in humanitarian logistics:

• RedR (UK & Australia, entrance level)
• Bioforce (France, intermediate to advanced level)
• The Fritz Institute (US, intermediate to advanced level)

Furthermore, some aid organisations run in-house courses for their staff.

There are currently only two independent blogs on humanitarian logistics

• A Humourless Lot, which sadly has not been active for about two years. Disclaimer: I am the founder and editor of AHL.
• Surely more interesting than cargo manifests..., which started fairly recently.
  

For an interesting look at aid logistics from the perspective of a specific organisation, you could do worse than read the WFP Logistics blog, 'We Deliver' (http://www.wfp.org/logistics/blog).

[Michael Keizer]

Humanitarian logistics is a pretty wide subject, so probably the best thing to do first is to define what part of it you would like to learn about first and work from there; there a few courses that more or less cover the entire width of the field (without going into much depth), but offhand I don't know of any one book that does. Apart from that, you might want to get a subscription on the only professional journal in the area, the Journal of Humanitarian Logistics and Supply Chain Management.