Humanitarian Operations and the UN Sustainable Development Goals

Besiou, Maria; Pedraza‐Martinez, Alfonso J.; Van Wassenhove, Luk N. Article — Published Version Humanitarian Operations and the UN Sustainable Development Goals Production and Operations Management Provided in Cooperation with: John Wiley & Sons Suggested Citation: Besiou, Maria; Pedraza‐Martinez, Alfonso J.; Van Wassenhove, Luk N. (2021) : Humanitarian Operations and the UN Sustainable Development Goals, Production and Operations Management, ISSN 1937-5956, Wiley, Hoboken, NJ, Vol. 30, Iss. 12, pp. 4343-4355, https://doi.org/10.1111/poms.13579 This Version is available at: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/284787 Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen: Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen. Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in EconStor may be saved and copied for your personal and scholarly purposes. You are not to copy documents for public or commercial purposes, to exhibit the documents publicly, to make them publicly available on the internet, or to distribute or otherwise use the documents in public. If the documents have been made available under an Open Content Licence (especially Creative Commons Licences), you may exercise further usage rights as specified in the indicated licence. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ Humanitarian Operations and the UN Sustainable Development Goals Maria Besiou* Kuehne Logistics University, Grosser Grasbrook 17, 20457 Hamburg, Germany, [email protected]g Alfonso J. Pedraza-Martinez Kelley School of Business, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, USA, [email protected] Luk N. Van Wassenhove INSEAD, 77305 Fontainebleau Cedex, France, [email protected] During emergencies humanitarian supply chains need to respond swiftly, very often without time for good planning that may end up in excessive waste and emissions. This short-term focus on saving people’s lives during disaster responses may harm communities and the planet in the long-run. Even long-term (development) focus on improving the life conditions of the poor may be either unsustainable due to the lack of community involvement or inequitable due to lack of resources. At the same time, countries closer to fulfilling the United Nations sustainable development goals (SDGs) suffer less from disasters but still struggle with issues such as social equity. There appears to be an important link between humanitarian operations and SDGs. This special issue focuses on this interaction through a rich variety of contributions using different methodologies, data and lenses, while proposing ways to advance the SDGs. The special issue clearly shows the value operations management can bring to short-term and long-term problems society faces. Key words: humanitarian operations; United Nations sustainable development goals; humanitarian logistics; disaster management cycle; sustainability History: Received: June 2021; Accepted: September 2021 by Subodha Kumar, after 1 revision. Corresponding author. 1. Introduction Back in 2015 the United Nations (UN) called for action to improve people’s lives and protect the planet by adopting seventeen sustainable development goals (SDGs) 1 to be achieved by 2030. In 2020, the UN published a report (United Nations 2020) assessing the progress on achieving each individual SDG. While there is positive progress on some goals, for example, access to safely managed drinking water, for others like SDG16 related to peace, the trend is unfortunately negative, with 2019 being a record year for the number of people fleeing war, persecution, and conflict. 2 Often, conflict is at the core of complex humanitarian crises. For example, the greatest needs for humanitarian aid are in Yemen, Democratic Republic of Congo, Afghanistan, Sudan, and Syria. 3 As to zero hunger (SDG2), the forecast for 2021 was 40% higher than 2020, with 235 million people in need of urgent food aid worldwide. 4 The COVID-19 pandemic has clearly increased the gap between the current status of progress on the SDGs and the 2030 goals. The global situation suggests the SDGs will most probably not be achieved (Sumner et al. 2020). The 2016 World Humanitarian Summit—organized by the UN—links humanitarian aid and the SDGs. In particular, it proposes that “substantial reduction in humanitarian needs also requires increased investment in national, local and regional [disaster] preparedness and establishing predictable response arrangements, such as shock responsive social protection and safety nets.” 5 Moreover, the Summit states the need to strengthen community resilience and women involvement as well as “investing in data, analysis and early warning, and developing evidence-based decision-making processes that result in early action.” 6 In other words, the Summit asserts that the link between humanitarian operations and the SDGs requires a broad view of humanitarian This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not used for commercial purposes. 4343 Vol. 30, No. 12, December 2021, pp. 4343–4355 DOI 10.1111/poms.13579 ISSN 1059-1478|EISSN 1937-5956|21|3012|4343 ©2021 The Authors. Production and Operations Management published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Production and Operations Management Society operations including development activities and evidence-based decision making. This special issue takes such a broad view of humanitarian operations and collects evidence-based papers at the intersection of humanitarian operations and SDGs, showing the urgency for more research in this area. In practice, many humanitarian stakeholders still approach development and relief programs in silos (Lewin et al. 2018). Research in operations management should not make the same mistake but study the intersection between shorter-term humanitarian operations and longer-term SDGs. Humanitarian supply chains not only play a critical role in saving people’s lives during emergencies, but also in improving quality of life during the recovery phase. Short-term, short-sighted relief interventions, however, can also harm communities in the longterm, increasing the number and impact of disasters even more. For example, sudden-onset disaster response requires quick action to save as many lives as possible, and this may happen without much consideration for how the impact area will be left after the intervention. Also, long-term development programs require cost-efficient procurement, and this may hamper sustainable interventions. Sometimes many unsolicited donations or too many items are brought to the field, due to poor planning and coordination (Holguin-Veras et al. 2012). Both may increase environmental degradation. Moreover, humanitarian organizations, for very good reasons, may compete for donations or be reluctant to building partnerships with other stakeholders, going against what the partnership for the goals (SDG17) tries to accomplish. Similarly, when SDGs focusing on higher level regional or global goals are not achieved, for example, reduced inequalities (SDG10), these inequalities can become humanitarian problems like increased poverty (SDG1) or reduced universal access to health (SDG3). Humanitarian operations and SDGs clearly interact both ways. This introductory piece proposes an integrative view of humanitarian operations and the SDGs. We argue that this integration is possible if humanitarian operations take a broad perspective that encompasses all the phases of the disaster management cycle (preparedness, response, recovery, and mitigation) (section 2). In other words, we advocate for a perspective that examines short-term disaster response as well as long-term development operations. We explicitly connect the papers accepted for the special issue to the SDGs and identify the interactions between SDGs investigated in these papers (section 3). Moreover, we identify research areas that need further attention (section 4) and close with a discussion of how COVID-19 affects the findings of the papers in the special issue (section 5). 2. An Integrative View of Humanitarian Operations Management and the SDGs This section elaborates on the interaction between humanitarian operations management and the SDGs. First, we explain our approach to humanitarian operations management in detail. Second, we present a systemic view of the SDGs. Third, we integrate humanitarian operations management and the SDGS. 2.1. Humanitarian Operations Management Humanitarian operations management, humanitarian logistics, and humanitarian supply chain management often refer to the effective and efficient management of (logistics and supply chain) processes—within and between organizations—that are in place to deliver assistance to those in need, while respecting the humanitarian principles of humanity, impartiality, neutrality, and independence. The humanitarian principles aim to guarantee that assistance is delivered “without adverse distinction.” 7 The scope of assistance delivery in humanitarian settings can be narrow, focusing exclusively on the response to humanitarian crises and disasters—or broad, focusing on relief through disaster preparedness, and response, as well as development through recovery, and mitigation, the so-called disaster management cycle (Tomasini and Van Wassenhove 2009). In low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), development aid often overlaps with the later phases of recovery and mitigation in the disaster management cycle. This special issue takes a broad perspective on humanitarian operations management for several reasons. First, humanitarian organizations, in their effort to respond as quickly as possible, tend to underestimate the vicious cycle of natural disasters further increasing poverty and vulnerability (Sodhi 2016). People experiencing disasters get or stay poorer, and poverty makes them vulnerable to further natural hazards. As such, the number of people impacted grows over time (as in any such vicious cycle), desperately requiring intervention. Second, disasters rarely happen without a warning, and warnings should trigger preparedness activities. For example, every year the US Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), prepares for the hurricane season by pre-positioning inventory and signing contracts with local suppliers for aid delivery. If a hurricane strikes, FEMA deploys the pre-positioned aid, which contributes to an effective disaster response. So, it makes operational sense to study the interaction between disaster preparedness and disaster response. Moreover, the level of preparedness of a community depends on long-term mitigation actions taken to Besiou, Pedraza-Martinez, and Van Wassenhove: Humanitarian Operations and the SDGs 4344 Production and Operations Management 30(12), pp. 4343–4355, ©2021 The Authors. Production and Operations Management published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Production and Operations Management Society reduce the risk of disasters. For example, Aceh Province in Indonesia suffered catastrophic losses during the 2004 Asian tsunami. The tsunami hit Aceh only 30 minutes after the earthquake and it took 15 minutes for the early warning system to alert the population. Since then, Aceh Province invested in early warning systems reducing the time to alert to 5 minutes. This community also invested in shelter infrastructure. But these investments have not always backed up with evacuation training in local schools and neighborhoods, which would be vital for people to take advantage of mitigation investments (Rayawan et al. 2021). So, the link between mitigation and preparedness also needs attention. Once the response that provides life-saving assistance ends, communities face the challenge of recovery, which often involves the same organizations that participate in the initial response. In doing so, these organizations leverage on the supply chains they employ for disaster response. However, it is not always easy to know when disaster response ends and recovery starts, which creates issues with the different donors funding either disaster response or development programs (Lewin et al. 2018). So, it makes operational sense to study recovery. Similar arguments can be made about the relation between recovery and mitigation, often referred to as “build back better,” that is, with more resilience. Building back better overlaps with capability building in development and focuses at breaking the vicious cycle of disasters creating even more disasters. Development aid is defined as “aid expended in a manner that is anticipated to promote development, whether achieved through economic growth or other means.” 8 Clearly, the level of development of a community affects the different phases of the relief effort in the disaster management cycle. For example, the 2010 Haiti earthquake affected the two countries— Haiti and Dominican Republic—located in the Hispaniola island (size comparable to Ireland). While the earthquake killed more than a quarter of a million people in Haiti, only four people were reported dead in the Dominican Republic, and this difference cannot be explained by distance to the epicenter alone. In 2010, Haiti’s GDP per capita was US $1172 while the Dominican Republic’s was US $5555. 9 Typically, more developed communities suffer less and recover faster from disasters than less developed ones, by being better prepared and more resilient. The economic status of a nation is, however, only one for the factors determining the impact of disasters. Of course, our integrative view does not suggest that every research article on humanitarian operations management should investigate the entire disaster management cycle. Instead, we propose that research should contextualize the problem within the broad framework of humanitarian operations management. This framework supports the view of SDGs as a system. 2.2. SDGs as a System Countries depend on their economic strength to reach the SDGs. In the poorest countries, a large percentage of the population faces difficulties satisfying critical survival needs and some suffer from extreme poverty (SDG1), hunger (SDG2), limited or zero access to health services (SDG3), and water and sanitation (SDG6). From now on we call SDGs 1, 2, 3, and 6 survival SDGs. Most deaths following disasters occur in LMICs. 10 The closer countries are to achieving these four SDGs, the more they support their population to improve their quality of life by promoting gender equality (SDG5), decent work and economic growth (SDG8), access to quality education (SDG4), and affordable and clean energy (SDG7). From now on we call SDGs 4, 5, 7, and 8 individual SDGs. These individuals then want to give back to their societies and countries by investing in industry, innovation and infrastructure (SDG9), sustainable cities and communities (SDG11), responsible consumption and production (SDG12), and reducing inequalities (SDG10). From now on we call SDGs 9, 10, 11, and 12 communal SDGs. If national governments, the private sector and civil society do not coordinate and invest in these communal SDGs global challenges will arise regarding climate (SDG13), life below water (SDG14), life on land (SDG15), and peace and justice (SDG16). We therefore refer to SDGs 13, 14, 15, and 16 as global SDGs. The UN suggested building global partnerships (SDG17) between national governments, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), the private sector, and civil society to be the capstone objective to achieve the SDGs. Figure 1 presents the interactions discussed. Each arrow represents an interaction, for example, an Fulfilled survival SDGs (1, 2, 3, 6) Fulfilled global SDGs (13, 14, 15, 16) + Fulfilled communal SDGs (9, 10, 11, 12) + Fulfilled individual SDGs (4, 5, 7, 8) + + Loop + + SDG 17 + SDG 17 + + Figure 1 Macro-Interactions of SDGs Besiou, Pedraza-Martinez, and Van Wassenhove: Humanitarian Operations and the SDGs Production and Operations Management 30(12), pp. 4343–4355, ©2021 The Authors. Production and Operations Management published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Production and Operations Management Society 4345 increase in SDG17 can affect the fulfilment of survival SDGs (1, 2, 3, and 6). Traveling around the loop, we notice that an initial increase of a variable comes back to the same variable to further affect it. For example, we understand that fulfilling more survival SDGs (1, 2, 3, and 6) offers the opportunity to the individuals to focus on improving their quality of life by focussing more on individual SDGs (4, 5, 7, and 8), and afterwards to give something back to their communities (SDGs 9, 10, 11, and 12). By fulfilling more communal SDGs, global SDGs (13, 14, 15, and 16) will be supported and it will be easier for individuals to outgrow their survival SDGs. Since the initial increase of fulfilled survival SDGs (1, 2, 3, and 6) ultimately ends in an increasing effect on the same variables, the feedback loop is characterized as a positive feedback loop. Hence the seventeen SDGs intersect and influence one another, as depicted in Figure 1, which makes identification of root causes in case one of them fails to be realized very difficult. 2.3. Interaction Between Humanitarian Operations Management and the UN SDGs How can humanitarian operations management support the SDGs? If the approach is about integrating shorter-term humanitarian operations and longerterm sustainable living conditions, then there is clear potential for contribution to SDGs. Consider Care International, which tackles “the underlying causes of poverty and social injustice to bring lasting change to the lives of poor and vulnerable people.” 11 Care International implements humanitarian programs that range from emergency response to women’s economic empowerment. Humanitarian operations can contribute to the SDGs when they take a longer-term approach to disaster management. From a systemic perspective, humanitarian operations reduce the risk of future disasters and increase community resilience, which contributes to fulfilling SDGs 1–16. Strengthening the SDGs in turn improves the potential success of future humanitarian operations and the lower dependency on them, by ending poverty, ensuring prosperity, and protecting the planet (Figure 2). Perhaps the best way to illustrate the interaction between humanitarian operations and the SDGs is by discussing the papers included in this special issue. They provide very strong evidence-based research on this interaction. 3. The Papers in this Special Issue The call for papers of this special issue encouraged submissions at the intersection of humanitarian operations and SDGs, clearly showing their connection to both topics. We asked the authors for rigorous research solidly anchored in practice, explicitly describing the problem context, justifying the data used, and clearly discussing how the findings were validated and how they could be applied in the field. We requested the authors to seek feedback from practitioners by asking them to confirm the papers tackle SDG-related issues grounded in reality, and results are useful in the field. We were particularly interested in stimulating research that contributes to better understanding the complexity of the SDGs, that is, robust studies presenting relevant and original work, using different disciplines and methodologies. The papers could fit one or more of the following categories: 1. Analytical modeling: Papers well-grounded in frameworks that capture defining characteristics of SDG settings. 2. Empirical: Papers that use public data, proprietary data, or experiments to test new theories related to UNSDGs. 3. Multimethod: Papers that combine different methods, such as case studies, interviews, for triangulation purposes. 4. Multidisciplinary: Papers that build upon knowledge or methods from multiple disciplines. Based on the interaction between humanitarian operations and SDGs, the call for this special issue was published in August 2019. The original deadline for submission was January 31, 2020. Due to multiple requests and the impact of COVID-19, we extended the deadline to May 31, 2020. In total, the authors Figure 2 Breaking the Vicious Cycle of Disasters through the Sustainable Development Goals [Color figure can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com] Besiou, Pedraza-Martinez, and Van Wassenhove: Humanitarian Operations and the SDGs 4346 Production and Operations Management 30(12), pp. 4343–4355, ©2021 The Authors. Production and Operations Management published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Production and Operations Management Society submitted 76 papers by the extended deadline. The regular POM journal system handled seven papers where all guest editors had a conflict of interest. Ten papers were finally accepted by June 2021. Next, we summarize each paper emphasizing the importance of the topic being discussed, methods used, and fit with the special issue objectives. 3.1. Trying and Failing: Biases in Donor Aversion to Rejection, by Daniels, Kaitlin; Valdes, Leon The UN recognizes the role donations play to achieve the SDGs: in its list of “170 daily actions to transform our world,” they suggest to “fill a box with nonperishable foods and donate it to a food bank”; and “[not to] keep clothes or other items you are not using. Donate them,” (United Nations Office at Geneva 2020). However, unwanted donations do not contribute to the SDGs and pose a unique challenge to nonprofit organizations (NPOs); rejected donors may be reluctant to give in the future. This study helps to address this challenge by improving our understanding of donors’ responses to rejected donations, shedding light on behaviors and biases that NPOs should be aware of and proposing interventions to mitigate them. The study uses a controlled experiment where subjects make a costly effort to donate but their donations can be rejected with some fixed probability. Rejection affects donors’ beliefs about the acceptance of future donations. Daniels and Valdes (2021) mainly address SDGs 1 (no poverty) and 12 (responsible consumption and production). NPOs are on the front line of the fight to eradicate poverty and they rely on donations (including in-kind, the focus of this work) to further their missions. At the same time, donations give new life to a used good that may be destined for the landfill. Depending on the type of donation, this work also has implications for goals such as SDGs 2 (zero hunger, e.g., food donations to food banks and other charities), 3 (good health and well-being, e.g., blood donations), and 4 (quality education, e.g., donations to public libraries and public schools, which are also included in the UN’s list of 170 daily actions). 3.2. A Systems Framework for International Development: The Data-Layered Causal Loop Diagram, by Blair, Courtney; Gralla, Erica; Wetmore, Finley; Goentzel, Jarrod; Peters, Megan It is essential that development scholars and practitioners have tools to understand the complex dynamics of global and local human systems and the key drivers of their behavior. System dynamics tools appear to be well-suited to address this challenge. However, they must be adapted to the typical data-poor and fragmented environment of development work in which it is simply quasi-impossible to gather all necessary information for detailed simulations. This study’s key contribution is an adaptation of the system dynamics approach to fragmented and data-poor environments like the ones of developing countries, by enabling limited inference of behavioral drivers without simulation. Specifically, the causal loop diagram is augmented with a data layer: data are added to each variable in the diagram to describe its status, such as the extent to which behaviors are adopted or conditions are true, and its change over time. The data-layered CLD was developed through a four-year engagement with USAID/ Uganda. The work strongly aligns with the objectives of this special issue by developing a tool adapted to the complex dynamic environment of many SDG situations, and working closely with practitioners to test and implement the methodology over an extended period of time. The complexity of SDG-related issues does indeed beg for engaged scholarship and closing the loop with the field and practitioners. Given the research context of working directly with the USAID/Uganda Office of Economic Growth to support agricultural market development, Blair et al. (2021) work most directly applies to SDG2 (end hunger, achieve food security) and SDG8 (promote sustained, inclusive, and sustainable economic growth). The study of agricultural financing readily extends to other SDGs since much of the system structure—such as financial institutions, informal loans, and mobile money—is essential for increasing access to other vital resources like health (SDG3), water and sanitation (SDG6), and energy (SDG7). 3.3. A Multi-method Approach to Prioritize Locations of Labor Exploitation for Ground-based Interventions, by Kougkoulos, Ioannis; Cakir, M. Selim; Kunz, Nathan; Boyd, Doreen; Trautrims, Alexander; Hatzinikolaou, Kornilia; Gold, Stefan More than 40 million people suffer from modern slavery and other forms of labor exploitation worldwide. This study assesses labor exploitation risks of migrant workers in informal settlements. In particular, the paper identifies eight exploitation risk criteria: percentage of workers registered, hours of work per day on average, suitable work clothing provided by farmers, hygiene, safety measures, measures to protect against cold provided by farmers, percentage of workers speaking the host country’s language, and informal settlement visibility from village and main roads. Next, the paper applies the model to six settlements in Southern Greece. The authors use multicriteria decision analysis (MCDA) to develop a decision-support system to help decision makers identify labor exploitation. This study “closes the loop” because the decision-support system is currently being used by the Greek Government as a decision-support tool in the strawberry production Besiou, Pedraza-Martinez, and Van Wassenhove: Humanitarian Operations and the SDGs Production and Operations Management 30(12), pp. 4343–4355, ©2021 The Authors. Production and Operations Management published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Production and Operations Management Society 4347 area of Nea Manolada, Greece. This study is one of the first attempts to model labor exploitation in humanitarian operations management. Kougkoulos et al. (2021) mainly deals with SDG8 (decent work and economic growth) because it provides a framework to identify labor exploitation. In addition, the study also addresses SDG1 (no poverty), SDG3 (good health and well-being), and SDG10 (reduced inequalities) because populations in risk of labor exploitation often are poor and deprived of basic services such as healthcare and education. 3.4. Development-Aid Supply Chains for Economic Development and Post-Disaster Recovery, by Sodhi, ManMohan; Knuckles, James Disasters do not only affect countries’ infrastructure and economic situation but also lead many people to extreme poverty. Development-aid supply chains (DASC) focus on economic development in a region or its long-term recovery following a disaster. Very often the DASC are funded by large donors or governments. Literature on DASC is scarce and hence this study investigates what DASCs are, the role they play in economic recovery by reducing deprivation and in development by reducing dependence on humanitarian aid. Sodhi and Knuckles (2021) conducted a field study across five solar-lantern supply chains set up in Haiti. These DASCs were originally developed for recovery following the massive 2010 earthquake. So improving the operations of these five solar-lantern supply chains ensures access to affordable, reliable, and renewable energy for everyone. The study finds that funding, while crucial for reducing deprivation in the short term, may increase the dependence on humanitarian aid rather than reduce it. This finding is very important since it points to a big issue of why it is difficult for developing countries suffering from emergencies to stop being dependent on humanitarian aid. The paper mainly deals with SDG1 and SDG8, and also touches upon SDG7. To quote from the opening paragraph: “The United Nations (UN) SDGs 1 seeks to end poverty in all its forms everywhere. SDG8 aims to promote sustained, inclusive, and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment, and decent work for all. For regions such as post-2010- earthquake Haiti, with only 44 percent of the population having access to electricity, SDG7 –seeking to ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable, and modern energy for all –is also relevant.” 3.5. Improving Outcomes in Child Care Subsidy Voucher Programs under Regional Asymmetries, by Arora, Priyank; Wei, Wei; Solak, Senay An average family in the US spends as high as 60% of their annual income on child care. Therefore, families that cannot afford child care receive subsidy vouchers. This study investigates the operational challenges of child care subsidies in communities in need. A government agency delivers child care subsidies to families in need, but sometimes these families decline the subsidies because they do not have access to voucheraccepting providers located close to the family’s home. The government agency can allocate scarce resources to increase the pool of voucher-accepting providers (outreach), which ultimately reduces inequity in subsidy allocation. But the agency also strives to improve the delivery of child care services by participating providers. The analytical model in this study minimizes the inequity in voucher allocation to income-eligible families by the government agency subject to a budget constraint. The model finds cases in which inequity is reduced when more funds are allocated to regions with the lower proportion of income-eligible families. The authors apply the model to a service area in Massachusetts, United States, and find an equity improvement of 7%. While the setting is based in the United States, the modeling framework can be adapted to investigate equity in subsidy allocation in other countries. Arora et al. (2021) directly relates to SDG4, which aims to “ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.” Second, this study relates to SDG5 (gender equality). In particular, the proposed solution can help decrease gender inequalities by prioritizing outreach in regions with disproportionately lower maternal labor force participation. More often than not, due to an insufficient number of voucher-accepting providers, mothers who would otherwise be able to accept and use vouchers cannot re-enter the workforce. Furthermore, since increasing accessibility of high-quality child care helps parents in low-income families maintain employment or attend school, which in turn helps them break the cycle of poverty, this study also relates to SDG1 (no poverty) and SDG10 (reduced inequalities). 3.6. Aid Allocation for Camp-Based and Urban Refugees with Uncertain Demand and Replenishments, by Azizi, Shima; Bozkir, Cem Deniz Caglar; Trapp, Andrew C.; Kundakcioglu, O. Erhun; Kurbanzade, Ali Kaan As of June 2019, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimated that well over one-third of the 70.8 million forcibly displaced people worldwide, nearly 26 million, are refugees, that is, have both crossed an international border in search of safety, and have been granted corresponding status. When compared with just ten years earlier this figure represents a staggering 70.4% increase. How should humanitarian aid be distributed from a Besiou, Pedraza-Martinez, and Van Wassenhove: Humanitarian Operations and the SDGs 4348 Production and Operations Management 30(12), pp. 4343–4355, ©2021 The Authors. Production and Operations Management published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Production and Operations Management Society central decision-maker to a refugee camp system, for example, in Turkey? And, at what point should a camp reserve aid for camp-based refugees, rather than sharing with nearby urban refugee populations? In light of uncertainties in medical aid distribution, namely camp-based demand, urban demand, and replenishment cycle duration, the authors present a stylized inventory management system and derive a sharing decision rule for each refugee camp, below which satisfying a demand occurrence from urban refugees should be rejected. The approach is then used to study aid allocation for a Syrian refugee camp system in southern Turkey motivated by real data, as well as for synthetic datasets. Results are validated by an extensive simulation study that shows broad support for the optimal thresholds and allocations to generalize across varied key parameters and distributions. Azizi et al. (2021) deal mainly with two UN SDGs. The first is SDG16 (peace, justice, and strong institutions), which as recently noted by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, includes “finding durable solutions for those already displaced.” The paper also relates to SDG10 (reduce inequality within and among countries), as better aid allocation policy contributes to the “planned and well-managed migration policies” target by helping facilitate orderly, safe, regular, and responsible migration and mobility of people. Moreover, the paper develops optimal ways to allocate aid to vulnerable refugees (SDGs 1, 2, and 3). 3.7. Elicitation of Preference among Multiple Criteria in Food Distribution by Food Banks by Hasnain, Tanzid, Sengul Orgut, Irem; Ivy, Julie More than 800 million people globally are estimated to suffer from food insecurity both in developing countries, mainly due to famines, and in developed countries, mainly due to income inequality. Food banks collect usable food from donors (e.g., grocery stores) and distribute it to food-insecure households. In doing so, food banks need to balance three objectives: equity, efficiency, and effectiveness. The food bank achieves equity when each demand point (county) receives their fair share of food. Efficiency refers to cost. Effectiveness refers to the amount of food distributed. For example, perfect effectiveness is equivalent to zero waste. Based on a decade long collaboration with a food bank in the United States, Hasnain et al. (2021) build a multi-criteria optimization model to help food banks manage the trade-offs between three objectives. They use data from their partner food bank to feed the model and share their findings with the food bank. Their findings illustrate the cost of equitable and effective distribution. Hasnain et al. (2021) directly address two of the UN SDGs: SDG2 (zero hunger) and SDG10 (reduced inequalities). In seeking to identify solutions to support food banks in achieving these goals, this study also indirectly addresses two other UN SDGs such as SDG1 (no poverty) and SDG3 (good health and wellbeing). 3.8. Inventory Policies for Pharmaceutical Distribution in Zambia: Improving Availability and Access Equity, by Gallien, J er emie; Leung, Zachary; Yadav, Prashant Low-income countries attain less than 25% average service level of essential medicines at public health facilities. This study models the reduction of stockouts of medicines, such as malaria drugs, specifically aiming to reduce inequality within and among countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. Using inventory management concepts, the paper proposes a simulation model that captures very specific setting characteristics (e.g., demand seasonality, uncertainty in both demand and lead-times, lost sale and equity) that would make an analytical model intractable. Through simulation, the authors compare the effectiveness of different inventory policies and find that an optimization-based policy outperforms the current base-stock inventory policy for malaria drugs in Zambia. They remark that the optimization-based policy is easy to implement at a low cost. The authors also describe an attempt to “close the loop,” that is, implement the optimization-based policy, led by Zambia’s Ministry of Health. Unfortunately, the implementation came to an end because of lack of funding. The authors highlight the implementation challenges of optimization models in humanitarian operations even when the cost-effectiveness of these models is high. This study models distribution equity using a standard deviation approach that can be easily extended to analyze inventory management of medicines in other Sub-Saharan countries. Gallien et al. (2021) relate directly to SDG3 (Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages), which explicitly highlights the equitable access to essential medicines and vaccines for all human beings. It also relates to SDG10 (reduce inequality within and across countries) because it aims to reduce the gap in access to essential medicines that exist between developed countries and developing countries. 3.9. Site Visit Frequency Policies for Mobile Family Planning Services, by De Vries, Harwin; Swinkels, Lisa E.; Van Wassenhove, Luk N. The UN Population Division (2009) assesses that for “every dollar spent in family planning, between two and six dollars can be saved in interventions aimed at achieving other development goals.” So enhancing access to family planning services is recognized as a Besiou, Pedraza-Martinez, and Van Wassenhove: Humanitarian Operations and the SDGs Production and Operations Management 30(12), pp. 4343–4355, ©2021 The Authors. Production and Operations Management published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Production and Operations Management Society 4349 key strategy to accelerate progress. Mobile family planning teams play a major role in bringing these services to rural areas and urban slums in LMICs. Such teams operate a limited number of days per year, and need to consciously choose how they allocate these days across sites in the catchment area— that is, how frequently to visit each site. While the consensus is that high-volume sites are to be visited more frequently, current guidelines are loosely specified and weakly adhered to. Based on four years of close collaboration with NGO Marie Stopes International, de Vries et al. (2021) develop and study simple, flexible guidelines which can easily be incorporated into a decision tree or dashboard. In line with current practice, they assign visit frequencies to sites based on a simple metric and data from previous visits. They also prove mathematically that the worst-case optimality gap is very small and show numerically that performance is robust. The findings were discussed with HQ and the Uganda team and the authors address several practical implementation concerns. The study exemplifies how OM can aid progress toward many of the UN SDGs without additional investments but by more effective allocation of resources. De Vries et al. (2021) relate to SDGs 3 (health) and 5 (gender equality) because they investigate access to family planning services. The implications of enhancing access, however, reach way beyond health and gender equality. Investing one extra dollar in family planning is argued to save many in interventions aimed at meeting other SDGs, including those on poverty (SDG1), hunger (SDG2), and education (SDG4). 3.10. A Cost-Sharing Mechanism for Multi- Country Partnerships in Disaster Preparedness by Rodriguez-Pereira, Jessica; Balcik, Burcu; Rancourt, Marie-Eve; Laporte, Gilbert Every year, hurricanes hit Caribbean countries during the Atlantic hurricane season. This study focuses on developing partnerships among countries to strengthen multilateral coordination for disaster preparedness. In particular, the inter-governmental Caribbean Disaster and Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA) is responsible for coordinating the disaster management activities of the 18 participating states. To ensure fast and effective regional response, CDEMA operates a collaborative prepositioning network in the region, where emergency relief supplies are stored in strategically located warehouses in four sub-focal countries. Once a disaster hits the region, the prepositioned supplies are immediately dispatched to help the affected countries. The study focuses on this collaborative prepositioning network and develops a multi-objective insurance-based model to equitably (fairly) allocate the costs of this multi-country partnership among its members, where fairness is formulated by enforcing horizontal and vertical equity as a convex linear combination with user-defined weights. Rodriguez-Pereira et al. (2021) support the SDG17 (partnerships for the goals) because they investigate strengthening cooperation between nation states in disaster preparedness and supporting capacity building in developing countries. Moreover, since the Caribbean region includes several small island states, which are under significant threat by climate change effects, the paper also supports SDG13 and SDG11, which strives to make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable, and includes targets that stress the need to protect the poor people in vulnerable situations. 4. The Contributions of the Special Issue We believe that the papers in this special issue encourage the development of more research at the intersection between shorter-term humanitarian operations and longer-term SDGs. First and foremost, all articles build on real problems and the authors take the reader to different locations worldwide. The work is relevant since most papers were written in close collaboration with practitioners and in some cases, for example Blair et al. (2021), a practitioner is co-author. The work is rigorous since all papers build upon realistic assumptions and use methods correctly. Several papers try to close the loop, which could potentially challenge their generalizability since they were built on a specific case. However, we do not believe this is the case because context and relevance are crucial in this field of study. We hope that this special issue indeed helps close the gap between research and practice. In section 4.1, we discuss how the special issue contributes to the interlink between humanitarian operations and SDGs, while in section 4.2 we raise a few important topics that are missing in the special issue. 4.1. This Special Issue and the Intersection between Humanitarian Operations and SDGs Back in 2014, Starr and Van Wassenhove (2014) edited a POM special issue on Humanitarian Operations and Crisis Management. The current special issue on Humanitarian Operations and the UN sustainable development goals is the second in the POM journal dealing with humanitarian operations in a time period of seven years. Its emphasis is less on short-term crisis management but rather more on the longerterm developmental side. The introduction of Starr and Van Wassenhove (2014) to the special issue identified the following problems as particularly relevant Besiou, Pedraza-Martinez, and Van Wassenhove: Humanitarian Operations and the SDGs 4350 Production and Operations Management 30(12), pp. 4343–4355, ©2021 The Authors. Production and Operations Management published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Production and Operations Management Society