UN Procurement and Logistics in Humanitarian Crisis

UN Procurement and Logistics in Humanitarian Crisis on the Case of Rohignya Refugee
Crisis in Cox Bazaar, Bangladesh
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

Chapter 1: Introduction 2000
1.1 Background
Refugee crisis refers to a problematic situation occurs in a country due to large number of
cross border humanitarian migration. This crisis is associated with availability of supply of
foods, accommodations, health services and other major survival components. It always
becomes difficult for the recipient countries to facilitate adequately for the refugees. United
Nations High Commissioners for Refugees or UNHCR was founded on 1950 by United
Nation as a supporting association for the global refugees (Ungm.org 2018). The role of
UNHCR is to protect and support the refugees after having a request form the recipient
country. UNHCR can also take initiation to protect and support refugees by themselves for
assisting the voluntary repatriation, local integration or resettlement to a third country. The
support ranged from logistical support and subsidising the government for a permanent
solution from them on a non-political and humanitarian basis.
Refugee crisis have increasingly become a major problem in modern world. The major
reasons contributing to the migration are people fleeing persecution, violence, outbreak of
war, global inequalities. Some of the major examples are osovan refugees who were forced
from their homes by the conflict with the Balkans; Columbian refugees on exile due to drug
syndicates; genocide in Rwanda; Afghan, Iraq and Iran refugees fleeing regimes etcetera and
Rohingya refugee because of forcible displacement of Myanmar nationals. In 2015 people
form Rohingya ethnic background forcible displaced from Rakhine state of Myanmar to
neighboring Bangladesh. Most of them fleet from their land by boat collectively named by
“boat people” (Ahsan Ullah 2016). Along with Bangladesh, fled people were also travelled to
other Southeast Asian Countries such as Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand by using Malacca and
the Andaman Sea. As per the estimation of United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees

around 25,000 people have been taken to boats from January to March in 2015 by migrant
smugglers (Prasse‐Freeman 2017).
1.2 Problem Statement
Approximately 700000 Rohingya driven from their homes and most of the Rohingya
villagers fled to refugee camps across the Bangladesh border. A huge number of Rohingya
camps have been developed in Cox’s Bazar and nearby areas. The government of Bangladesh
trying to facilitated the Cox’s Bazar area with healthcare clinics, food supply and survival
goods. Several vaccination campaigns are being executed from past 5 years in that area that
includes both local Bangladeshi and Rohingya people (who.int 2019). The representative of
World Health Organisation Dr Bardan Jung Rana is directly coordinating the subsidisation
operations from the United Nations High Commissioners for Refugees or UNHCR.
Healthcare service support with adequate workforce and supplies for the people of this area is
becoming challenging for the Bangladesh government (Parnini, Othman and Ghazali 2013).
As it has been discussed earlier that United Nations High Commissioners for Refugees or
UNHCR needs to execute subsiding operation for this area, logistical analysis and the
procurement strategy could help to identify the gaps or limitations in the logistics and
procurement systems executed by Bangladesh government and UNHCR for the Cox’s Bazar
area. Currently, there is very few research papers on the topic procurement and logistics
strategies used by UNHCR for the Cox’s Bazar area.
1.3 Research Purpose
As per the above discussion it can be interpreted that this study needs to explore and analyse
the supply chain logistics and procurement practice used for the medical service, foods and
other supplies in Cox’s Bazar area of Bangladesh. Therefore, the purpose of this research is

to explore and examine the UN Procurement and Logistics in Humanitarian Crisis on the
Case of Rohignya Refugee Crisis in Cox Bazaar, Bangladesh in order to find gaps which can
eventually help to develop appropriate recommendation for future procurement operation.
1.4 Research Questions
From the above discussion of the background and problem statement it has been found there
are several unknown factors that should be reviled through this study. The major factor is that
the procurement procedure of procurement current used for the Humanitarian crisis in Cox’s
Bazar area is unexplored. Apart from that the gaps and limitation of the current procurement
strategies are not examined. There is not such recommendations available on the procumbent
practice for Humanitarian crisis in Cox’s Bazar area. Therefore the research questions of this
paper are:
 What are the current procurement and logistics practice used for Humanitarian Crisis
in Cox’s Bazar
 What are the limitations and gaps in the current procurement and logistics practice
used for Humanitarian Crisis in Cox’s Bazar
 How to improve the situation through betterment of procurement and logistics
practice by UN and Bangladesh government
1.5 Research Aims and Objectives
From the above discussion it can be said the major aim of this research is exploring and
examining the current procurement and logistics strategies used by UN and Bangladesh
government. The secondary aim of this research is develop a set of recommendation for the
government. Therefore, the research objectives are:

Logistics and
Supply Chain
Supply chain
management refers
to the procedure of
keeping the flow of
goods from the
gathering the goods
from other
organisations to
 To explore the current procurement and logistics practice used for Humanitarian
Crisis in Cox’s Bazar
 To explore the procurement theories and strategies related to logistics in
Humanitarian Crisis
 To examine the gaps and limitation of the current procurement and logistics practice
used for Humanitarian Crisis in Cox’s Bazar
 To develop the recommendation betterment of procurement and logistics practice by
UN and Bangladesh government
1.6 Significance of the Research
From the above discussion it can be said the through this research the current procurement
and logistics strategies used by UN and Bangladesh government can be explored and
examined. It will allow to analyse the underlying factors behind the logistics procedures used
globally for humanitarian crisis in future. Apart from that research will help the governing
body by developing a set of recommendation for the government, which can be further
implemented for better procurement outcome in Rohingya crisis and any other humanitarian
crisis across the world
Chapter 2: Literature Review 4000
2.1 Introduction
Literature review is a process of collecting secondary data about a particular topic in order to
develop the theoretical understanding as well as the decision making ability for
methodological selection. The purpose of this literature review is to collect and present
secondary data associated with supply chain management strategy, supply chain logistics and

Supply Chain
Management
Strategies
good into the final
products and
supplying the
products to the end
users. Hence the
procedures includes
three major steps
procurement,
processing and
distribution.
Procurement is a
key activity of
supply chain that
implies the activity
of gathering raw
material from
sources which
includes inbound
logistics model as
well Supply chain
management refers
to the procedure of
keeping the flow of
goods from the
gathering the goods
from other
organisations to
transforming the
good into the final
products and
supplying the
products to the end
users. Hence the
procedures includes
three major steps
procurement,
processing and
distribution.
Procurement is a
key activity of
supply chain that
implies the activity
of gathering raw
material from
sources which
includes inbound
logistics model as
well Supply chain
management refers
to the procedure of
keeping the flow of
goods from the
gathering the goods
from other
organisations to
transforming the
good into the final
products and
supplying the
products to the end
users. Hence the
Procurement and
Distribution
Theories
Inventory and
Warehousing
Risk and
Vulnerability
Regulatory System
Supply Chain for
Humanitarian Crisis
procurement practice used for the medical service, foods and other supplies. The presentation
of this literature review is based on thematic review where the themes of the literature review
have been chosen based on the research questions and fields of collecting secondary data.
Some themes are also chosen while reviewing the literatures based on the most frequently
discussed topic within the chosen literatures. The major themes identified in for this literature
review are Supply Chain Management Strategies, Procurement and Distribution Theories,
Inventory Management and Warehousing, Risk and Vulnerability in supply chain
management system, Supply Chain for Humanitarian Crisis and Regulatory Systems for
procuring the humanitarian materials and using supply chain management for supporting the
crisis community.
2.2 Conceptual Framework
2.3 Supply Chain Management
Supply chain management refers to the procedure of keeping the flow of goods from the
gathering the goods from other organisations to transforming the good into the final products

three major steps
procurement,
processing and
distribution.
Procurement is a
key activity of
supply chain that
implies the activity
of gathering raw
material from
sources which
includes inbound
logistics model as
well Supply chain
management refers
to the procedure of
keeping the flow of
goods from the
gathering the goods
from other
organisations to
transforming the
good into the final
products and
supplying the
products to the end
users. Hence the
procedures includes
three major steps
procurement,
processing and
distribution.
Procurement is a
key activity of
supply chain that
implies the activity
of gathering raw
material from
sources which
includes inbound
logistics model as
well
and supplying the products to the end users. Hence the procedures includes three major steps
procurement, processing and distribution. Procurement is a key activity of supply chain that
implies the activity of gathering raw material from sources which includes inbound logistics
model as well (undp.org 2015). Logistics is a mechanical flow of goods with the help of
transportation and other locomotive equipment. For long rout or offshore cargo transportation
water-based, and air-based transportations are used. On the other hand, for local and national
level cargo transportation, land-based cargo trucks or vans are used. In procurement operation
the inbound logistic model is used where the flow of goods is directed towards the production
hubs where the goods are assembled and processed to develop products (Dlca.logcluster.org
2020). The effectiveness procurement procedure in terms of quality and cost is highly
dependent on the quality of sources, cost of procurement and integration of sources. If the
quality of the sources is high the quality of procurement will be also high and similarly if the
pricing of the supplier is then the cost of the procurement will be also high. Furthermore,
strategic warehousing and inventory management are some other essential part of
procurement operation that acts as a buffer within the supply chain material flow.
The suppliers can be integrated through horizontally and vertically based on the production
mechanism. In horizontal integration a company incorporate other supplier of same level
when developing a product or service through assembling different types of products. The
vertical intermigration is used to incorporate supplier of different level of product
development where a company controls the supply needed for developing product as well as
the company controls the supply needed to develop the supplied production and so on. Retail
operations or subsidising based organisational operation the vertical integration has been used
and on the other hand for production based organisational operation the horizontal integration
has been used. On the other hand, for an electronics company that controls the supplier of the
gadget, the supplier of the electronics needed for the gadget, the supplier microchips needed

for the electronics, the vertical supply chain integration has been used. Therefore, the
financial effectiveness of the supply chain management plan should also be considered while
implementing a supply chain management strategy. In supply chain return of the goods is
another significant concern that associated with the return and replacement policy of an
organisation. When the consumers return groups for manufacturing defect and when the
goods are found disputed during the logistics operation, that are taken back to the production
inventory for recycling and redevelopment. Hence, the supply chain management map must
have a two way logistic function to ensure the backward flow of returned goods.
2.4 Procurement and Distribution
In the procurement phase, the company tries to get the raw materials necessary for your
business to do its work. Every company has to go through procurement. For service
companies, it may be making sure that consultants and accountants have the necessary
equipment to do their jobs. However, it's easiest to demonstrate when we use a manufacturing
company, so we'll focus on a widget manufacturing firm for this example. The major
activities associated with the procurement are Specifying requirements of the inbound
logistics operations, Identifying sources for the chosen products that are being produced in
the manufacturing department or distributed across an area, Evaluating options or alternatives
suppliers available to deliver the particular set of goods and Acquiring resources that are fit
for purpose, cost effective and sustainable. Procurement includes sourcing and purchasing
and covers all of the activities from identifying potential suppliers through to delivery from
supplier to the customer. Sourcing relates to identifying and working with appropriate
suppliers. Purchasing relates to the specific functions associated with the actual buying of
goods and services from such suppliers. The terms 'purchasing‘ and 'strategic sourcing' are
often used interchangeably in discussions about the buying activities of companies.

Purchasing applies to the transactional functions of buying products and services at the
lowest possible price. Strategic sourcing takes the process further, focusing on developing
channels of supply at the lowest total cost to the company, not just the lowest purchase price.
Distribution is the process of distributing the manufactured products within the consumer
market by using outbound logistics. In outbound logistics air transport, water transport and
overland transport systems are used. As overland transport both on road transport and rain
road transport are used. Trans-loading is a major factor of distribution system. Normally
freight may need to be transferred from one type of loading unit to another. It is needed to
Combine smaller shipments from various consignors into one single load (as consolidated
shipment) – value-adding activities such as packaging or palletizing of products. It can be
also used to transfer freight to a different loading device necessary for another mode of
transportation. Different type of distribution networks are used for distribution and outbound
logistics operations. In outbound logistics network link and nodes are used to represent the
transportation line and distribution centred. In tree structured distribution network the
shipment centres are used to warehouse the products and sorting them out for the distribution
channels of a larger area. From shipment centres the materials are transported to distribution
centres of different areas depending on the market demand and outlets. From the distribution
centres the goods are distributed across the local stores and outlets.
2.5 Warehouse and Inventory Management
Warehouse is major part of supply chain management system that acts as buffer or junction in
multiple of single logistics system. Warehouse is usually used to store the material while
procuring and distribution temporarily as well as a consolidation centre. In warehouse the
inventory management system is executed to ensure the proper flow of material. Inventory is
the stored accumulation of transformed resources such as materials, information, money, and

sometimes customers. Inventory management is the activity of planning and controlling
accumulated resources that flow through supply networks, operations and processes.
Inventory ties up money, in the form of working capital, which is therefore unavailable for
other uses, such as reducing borrowings or making investment in productive fixed assets. In
other words, it has an opportunity cost, and at the same time cannot be considered to directly
add value. Holding Inventory inefficiently slows throughput in processes, operations and
supply. Three types of inventories are used namely Buffer Inventory, De-Coupling Inventory
and Anticipation Inventory. Buffer inventory is also called safety inventory. Its purpose is to
compensate for the unexpected fluctuations in supply and demand. De-coupling inventory is
also called work-in-progress inventory. It allows each operation to be set to the optimum
processing speed (cycle time), regardless of the speed of the steps before and after.
Anticipation inventory can be used to coped with seasonal demand. Holding inventory also
causes expenditure to maintain the goods while keeping an adjustable environment for the
material. Two types of inventory management are popular globally namely conventional
inventory management and just in time inventory management.
Proper warehouse management system can provide Safe storage of inventories, efficient
accessibility to reduce handling time, improve inventory turnover by using methods such as
FIFO and providing aging reports, provide efficient flow of materials to ‘customers’ to
achieve overall efficiency and ensure optimal safety. Some of the modern thinking of
warehouse management are, reducing waste by eliminating excess inventories, reducing the
processing times of all activities and achieve maximum operational efficiency to reduce cost.
For warehouse designing besides space requirement, design must also take into consideration
products’ characteristics such as weight and volume. Global supply chains commonly require
multiple levels, spread across various international locations. As well as extended in-transit
inventory travelling between locations, supply chains also have inventory stored at multiple

stages in various states of manufacture or assembly. Hence warehousing and materials
handling systems have become highly sophisticated to maintain the flow of freight to the end
customer. At each levels, different types of warehouse perform different functions. Inventory
metrics act as a measure of operational performance, and reflect the adherence to processes,
rather than the performance of the inventory team who conduct cycle counts. Cycle-counting
measures the length of time that inventory is sitting in the warehouse. Three types of
reduction principles are used globally to reduce the burden of inventory management or
holding up the materials, those are: Pool inventory where based on demand the excessed
stocks are lowered, Reduce variation of different materials, Reduce lead time through
forecasting about the future time latency time.
2.6 Risk and Vulnerability in Supply Chain Management
There are many risks associated with the supply chain management system that can
completely break the workflow operation up. Today's marketplace is characterized by
turbulence and uncertainty. Market turbulence has tended to increase in recent years for a
number of reasons. Significant amount of 'chaos' in supply chains can be the result of such
actions as sales promotions, quarterly sales incentives or decision rules such as reorder
quantities. The impact of unplanned and unforeseen events in supply chains can have severe
financial effects across the network as a whole. Many companies have experienced a change
in their supply chain risk profile as a result of changes in their business models. Many
organizations today are addressing the issues of what has come to be termed 'business
continuity'. In practice, however, there tends to be a limited focus for much of business
continuity management. There is a strong focus on IT and internal process management but
often the wider supply risk dimension is not considered. This is paradoxical since it can be
argued that the biggest risk to business continuity may be in the wider network of which the

individual business is just a part. To widen the focus on supply chain vulnerability it is
suggested that a supply risk profile be established for the business. The purpose of the risk
profile is to establish where the greatest vulnerabilities lie and what the probability of
disruption is. In a sense this approach takes the view that: Supply chain risk = Probability of
disruption x Impact. To help identify the risk profile of a business it is helpful to undertake an
audit of the main sources of risk across the network. This audit should examine potential risk
to business disruptions arising from sources.
Dynamic flexibility is a reflection of the agility of the supply chain, particularly its ability to
respond rapidly to variations in volume and mix. Structural flexibility is the ability of the
supply chain to adapt to fundamental change. Hence in risk situation the supply chain
management system should be moved from dynamic to structural flexibility. For structural
flexibility different strategies can be used such as Postponement, by holding the base
materials, sub-assemblies, and modules as strategic inventory and assembling or configuring
the product against actual orders, flexible labour arrangements, by utilising “annual hours”
agreements or by making use of agency personnel, dual sourcing, by having alternative
sources for key raw materials and major components, asset sharing and by separating “base”
from “surge” demand. Asset sharing can be possible by sharing physical assets such as
factories, distribution centres or trucks with other companies, including competitors.
Separating “base” from “surge” demand can be possible by recognising that most products
will have a base level of predictable demand that can be planned for.
2.7 Humanitarian Supply Chain Management
For humanitarian operation the procurement is used to gather food products, medical supplies
from the supplier to deliver to the target population under crisis. Hence, the supply chain

management operation in only dependent on the inbound logistics and distribution or
outbound logistics. In Humanitarian context the procurement operations are based on four
major principles namely transparency, accountability, efficiency and cost effectiveness
(Schiffling and Hughes 2017). The transparency implies the transparency of all phases in the
procurement process where the information are shared with fare documentation as well as
accuracy. Accountability refers to the responsibility of the supplier, because in most of the
humanitarian procurement the suppliers are national and international level NGO
organisations, government agencies, donors and subsidisers. With accountability these
suppliers can be bounded under certain rules and regulations. Efficiency implies the
timeliness of the delivery and quality of the delivered goods by the supplier. Since, in
humanitarian procurement the supplied products are distributed within the target population
free of cost the measure of the quality in this case depends on the quality itself, not on the
price of the product (da Silva Lamenza, Fontainha and Leiras 2019). Humanitarian
procurement operation is aimed to providing supplies to a target population who do not have
enough affordability. Hence, the government and the other procuring agencies have to ensure
that the procurement product is not overpriced that can highly influence their humanitarian
procurement budget.
The humanitarian procurement operations are majorly based on local sourcing and it is the
most effective humanitarian logistics strategy that can ensure the sustainability of the supply
chain management as well (Tradeforum.org 2018). Humanitarian procurement operation also
depends on offshore or international level supply chain where the most significant factor is
taxation and legislative compliances. However, in most of the humanitarian procurement
operations globally government permit the importation and exportation operations with
considerably less amount of taxation and legislative complication. According to Jahre (2017),
humanitarian procurement is also a very risky supply chain operation in terms of financial

loss, supply amount deficiencies, international political relationships and others. For this
same reason managing effective amount of stock is an essential strategy which can be
possible through efficient warehousing. For this reason, the humanitarian organisations
globally use competent prepositioning of resources with flexible supply base cooperation to
ensure accessibility of the target population to the supplied materials.
2.8 UNFPA Fast Track Policies and Procedure
The Fast Track Procedures (FTPs) are a set of procedures that offer UNFPA country
offices in special situations greater delegation of authority and flexibility in specific
programme and operational areas for a time-bound period. Except during a Level 3 crisis
where the response capacity of the country office is severely compromised requiring global wide
response, and where activation of FTPs is automatic, activation must be requested by country
offices and approved by the DED Management. Initial approval of FTPs is for up to 6 months
only and any extension must be requested. While these procedures are meant to help staff and
facilitate work in an emergency setting, they do expose UNFPA to increased risk and it should
only be used when absolutely needed which must be properly documented. UNFPA country
offices that are operating in particularly challenging local contexts and need to make time-critical
interventions are eligible and can request authorization to use the Fast Track Procedures. A
humanitarian crisis has been declared by the national authorities and support offered by the
Office of Coordination for Humanitarian Affairs or by the UNCT. The FTPs are applicable to all
levels of UNFPA humanitarian response i.e. level 1, 2 and level 3 that is declared by the IASC
through the Emergency Relief Commissioner. The Fast Track Procedures focus on critical
programme and operational areas that have the potential of enhancing the capacity of the country
office to deliver support rapidly and with flexibility in special situations. They cover the
following areas: Programme Management, Financial Management, Human Resources
Management, and Procurement Procedures.

Procurements valued between USD 5,000 to USD 249,999 per solicitation require the standard
Emergency RFQ Template to be used. For procurement under Level 3 humanitarian crises valued
above 250,000 USD the Emergency RFQ Template above USD 250,000 should be used to solicit
bids or proposals. When a purchase order is placed with a supplier who is asked to cover freight
and where freight was not part of the solicitation process, comparative quotations for freight
should be obtained if the value of the freight quotation is above USD 100,000. The buyer should
compare the supplier’s offer for freight with freight LTA offers and choose the lowest freight
option. Procurements valued above USD 250,000 per solicitation require an Invitation to Bid
(ITB) or Request for Proposal (RFP), except for requirements for level 3 humanitarian crisis
which can be procured through an RFQ. The ITB/RFP must be detailed enough to enable
suppliers to give an informative quote. The Request for Contract Award Form must be filled out
to obtain approval from the designated procurement authority if the contract value is more than
USD 5,000 but below the thresholds that require ECRC review. In humanitarian settings, country
offices are often approached by different donors who may be interested in funding UNFPA's
humanitarian programmes. Country offices are encouraged to inform their regional Resource
Mobilization Adviser and the Resource Mobilization Branch (RMB) [e-mail] as soon as
possible. Likewise, the receipt of different types of short-term humanitarian funding (e.g. CERF,
etc) may require rapid disbursement rates and may necessitate the activation of FTPs. Country
Offices are encouraged to contact [e-mail] for further advice if needed.
2.9 Summary
2.10 Literature Gap

This literature review presents the theoretical as well as the practical aspects of the overall
supply chain management concepts form organisational perspectives as well as from
humanitarian perspectives. However, this literature review has some major gap that prevented
this review to meet the objectives of this review properly. In this literature review the major
gap is that the review is that this literature review is more focused on the theoretical aspects
of the supply chain management instead of focusing on the history of humanitarian supply
chain management system and their records of strategic interventions. Apart from that,
another major limitation of this review is that this review is entirely based on thematic review
that restricts the ability to properly presenting counter arguments with evidence based
systematic comparative analysis. Lack of systematic approach reduced the specificity and the
level of critical evaluation of this study.
Chapter 3: Methodology 2000
3.1 Introduction
The methodology of a research should be based on both conceptual and practical aspects. The
structure of this research is based on the research onion which is a conceptual framework for
selecting the research methods. Research onion includes both theoretical and practical
aspects. The theoretical aspects of a research are research philosophy, research approach and
research design. On the other hand, the implementable or practical aspects of a research are
data collection, population selection and data analysis. The selection of the practical aspects
are based on the theoretical aspects of the methodology. In this methodological discussion the
conceptual and practical aspects are discussed in following order: philosophy, approach,
design, sampling, data collection and data analysis. For this research, these aspects are
discussed in the following section.

3.2 Research Philosophy
The research philosophy implies philosophy of handling the research problem to develop the
resolutions. There are mainly three types of research philosophies namely positivism, realism,
interpretivism and pragmatism (MacLure 2017). In positivism research the data are collected
from large sample size analysed collectively to find pattern within the collected data. In
realism research philosophy the problem is solved through analysing the human perception of
reality and sensory experience. Pragmatism research philosophy allows a combine
philosophy of positivism and interpretivism. On the other hand, interpretivism research
philosophy is used to collect data from small sample size to interpret the each data from
various perspectives. For this research there is not enough scopes of collecting data from a
large sample size. Therefore, this research needs an in-depth interpretation from various
aspects. Therefore, for this study the interpretivism research philosophy has been used.
3.3 Research Approach
Research approach implies the approach to view the problem to solve it. As per the research
approach there are three major research approaches that can be used in any research. These
research approaches are inductive research approach, deductive research approach and
abductive research approach (Padilla-Díaz 2015). Inductive research approach allows
exploration of a factor without having a pre-assumption or external interpretational guideline.
The deductive approach is used to test hypothesis or pre-assumption or theory. In the
abductive approach, a research abducts a logical explanation from other concept to utilize in
that in its research. According to the aims and objectives of this research it can be found that
this research needs a method that can both explore and explain the underlying factors
associated with procurement practice. For this reason, this research does not have any

predetermined hypothesis or assumption to prove. Hence, for this research the inductive
research approach has been used.
3.4 Research Design
The research design of a research implies the structure of a research that explains the tools,
data analysis process and research platform of study. There are many research designs that
can be used in a research such as systematic review, cross sectional research, experimental
research, quasi experimental research, meta-analysis, observational study, case study analysis
and reflection (Vial 2015). The selection of the research design should be based on the
research scopes and purpose of the research. This research requires a research design that can
both explore and explain the underlying factors associated with procurement practices.
Therefore, for this research a mixed design will be used through using secondary study and
cross sectional study. The design of the cross sectional data collection is based on open ended
qualitative data where the descriptive study has been conducted. Moreover, the design of this
study is cross sectional descriptive.
3.5 Population and Sampling
Selecting the appropriate population for the data collection this research will become a major
challenge. As per the aim and the objectives of this research through the interview session the
information regarding current foods, healthcare supply and other goods procurement has been
collected from a population that are either directly involved with the logistics and
procurement operations of the Cox’s Bazar or have well understanding and experience about
the logistics used in present situation of Cox’s Bazar for humanitarian crisis. The offline
interview session will be conducted for data collection. Initially a consent form mentioning
the purpose of the interview session will be distributed. The interview session will be

conducted with the persons who will acknowledge to be a part of this study. Therefore, the
sampling strategy for this study is non-probability sampling. Specifically, non-probability
convenient sampling will be used for this interview session based data collection procedure
of this research (Etikan, Musa and Alkassim 2016).
3.6 Data Collection Procedure
Data collection of a research implies the process of collecting data for final analysis. The data
collection procedures can be divided into two categories namely the primary data collection
and the secondary data collection. Primary data collection is a process of collecting data from
practical experiment or real field based study. The secondary data collection involves the data
collection from different secondary resources such as books, articles, news reports, journals
and others. For data collection this research will use a mixed method where the literature
review and other secondary data will be collected to analyse the theories of procurement
practices utilised globally for humanitarian crisis, while collecting practical data on the
existing procurement practice in Bangladesh executed by UN in Cox’s Bazar area. For
secondary data collection, text books, theoretical studies, articles and literatures will be
considered along with the online reports, new reports, WHO reports and associated secondary
resources. On the other hand for primary data collection interview method will be used to
collect data about current procurement practices for humanitarian crisis in Bangladesh as well
as the future developmental scopes. The semi structured interview has been used as the data
collection tool where the questions will be developed as per the knowledge developed
through literature review.
3.7 Data Analysis Procedure

The data analysis process is a process of analysis the collected data based on the
characteristics of the collected data to find the implications out of it. The data analysis
proceeds can be subdivided into two categories namely the qualitative study and quantitative
study. The qualitative analysis are the process of analysing non-numeric qualitative data
through using different qualitative approach such as narrative analysis, thematic analysis,
contextual analysis, grounded theory, concept map and others. Quantitative analysis methods
are used to analyse the numerical data through using the statistical and mathematical
methods. As per the data collection procedure which is interview, most of the collected data
will be qualitative and non-numeric. For qualitative data the conceptual or non-numerical
analysis will be helpful instead of statistical or mathematical analysis. For this study the
thematic coding based data analysis will be used through using MAXQDA qualitative data
analysis software. Through this data analysis software the written script of interview will be
coded followed by the thematic mapping. Through the thematic mapping the major findings
will be noted and after that the thematic frequency analysis will be conducted in order to find
the mostly repeated and essential factors identified in the qualitative analysis procedure
regarding the chosen topic.
3.8 Ethical Consideration
The ethical concern of a research should be based on three major aspects namely the consent
of the participant, the health impact of the research on the participant and the confidentiality
of the collected data. As per the data collection procedure that will be used in this research,
before interview session a consent form will be distributed to the target population
mentioning the purpose and significance of the participation along with ensuring the data
privacy of this research method. The data collection will be only conducted for the
respondents who will willingly participate in this study. This study is not an experimental

study and therefore, the data collection process which is interview will not have any impact
on the health of the respondents. The data will be collected and stored as per the data privacy
and security act. As per the regulation, the raw data with personal details of the interviewee
will be preserved in a secured database and the data will not be used in any other research or
purpose.
3.9 Summary
According to the aims and objectives of this research it can be found that this research needs
a method that can both explore and explain the underlying factors associated with
procurement practice. This research needs an in-depth interpretation from various aspects and
for this the interpretivism research philosophy has been chosen. For this research the
inductive research approach has been used. For this research a mixed design will be used
through using secondary study and cross sectional study. he interview session the information
regarding current foods, healthcare supply and other goods procurement has been collected
from a population that are either directly involved with the logistics and procurement
operations of the Cox’s Bazar or have well understanding and experience about the logistics
used in present situation of Cox’s Bazar for humanitarian crisis. The semi structured
interview has been used as the data collection tool where the questions will be developed as
per the knowledge developed through literature review. For data analysis the thematic coding
based data analysis will be used through using MAXQDA qualitative data analysis software.
Chapter 4: Analysis and Result 4000

Chapter 5: Conclusion 2000
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