Global action

Conference helped to network, coordinate international humanitarian relief agencies

	ABOVE: Plenary speaker Amer Daoudi, director of the World Food Programme’s Logistics Division, spoke on world hunger and the challenges that come with reaching beneficiaries in remote and war-torn areas. BELOW: The conference also hosted 37 poster presentations encouraging a continuation of dialog on ways that humanitarian organizations can continue to complement each other.

More than 180 participants onverged on the Georgia Tech Conference Center on Feb. 19 and 20, all with the common goal of enhancing humanitarian logistics.

Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering Professors Ozlem Ergun, Pinar Keskinocak, and Julie Swann organized the 2009 Humanitarian Logistics Conference that addressed pressing challenges in humanitarian relief and development, and inspired new ideas and practices.

Participants came from across the globe representing a variety of organizations interested in disaster relief including academia, the United Nations, government, private organizations and military. The conference opened dialog among the various humanitarian efforts and contributed to new collaborations and synergies across many different organizations represented by the attendees.

The conference consisted of several keynote and panel speakers on disaster preparedness and response, long-term development and humanitarian aid, and intra- and inter-organizational collaboration in disaster planning and long-term humanitarian aid.

For more information

Center for Humanitarian Logistics