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
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
 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
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
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