Using Technology for better humanitarian aid

For NGOs and public health service providers, the management of equipment, medicines and food distribution are crucial issues. This is especially felt in areas where the concentration of refugees is very high and/or the infrastructure does not allow for timely control and regular delivery. The most crucial part remains the availability of medical supplies at health clinics with which NGOs collaborate. The situation becomes more critical when there is a spread of contagious diseases or during a crisis situation.

Lebanon underwent a humanitarian crisis due to the massive immigration of Syrian refugees caused by the ongoing conflict in that country. Keeping up with the high demand for medicines in these conditions highlighted the limits of the current supply chain and the issues related to lack of monitoring in the ‘last mile’, i.e., the segment between the last warehouse and the final user.

This crisis gave me the idea to develop a research project that would help people. This project aimed at developing an action-oriented research network to promote ‘open source’ solutions for better monitoring and management of humanitarian supply chains. The ‘SMSer project’, as it was called, developed a system able to support the tracking and tracing of medicines in the last segment of humanitarian supply chains. This system was tested at the ICRC Weapon-wounded Trauma and Training Centre in Tripoli (Lebanon).

It is usually quite difficult to develop projects with a humanitarian mission. It is even more difficult when it originates from a research project and the resulting technology solution has to be transferred to the field. This project allowed me to establish an excellent collaboration with Saint-Joseph University in Lebanon and Hassan II University of Casablanca in Morocco.

LH MENA supported the organisation of two scientific workshops that brought together academia, NGO, government and industry experts active in the humanitarian sector. These workshops were crucial in the creation of an international scientific network, sharing the same vision and mission: creating new opportunities for the development of specific solutions that can support both the deployment of effective humanitarian aid medicine delivery, and the empowerment of local stakeholders. Thanks to the creation of this network, the project is still active after 4 years and it is on its road to becoming a sustainable operation.

The help of the LH MENA programme allowed us to create a working group where all experts and organisations interested in this field could meet and share their ideas, in order to democratise the deployment of such solutions in the Middle East and in North Africa.