Rethinking Humanitarian Assistance Coordination

This paper develops an analytical framework to address an issue of enduring and seemingly intractable concern, how to secure improved coordination among those parties and organizations that seek to provide assistance in humanitarian crises. This matter receives persistent attention because all parties agree that more successful coordination of their efforts will lead to improved outcomes for those they seek to serve. The trouble is that the structure of actors and the operating environments in which humanitarian agents must work do not readily encourage broad and open cooperation among them. The humanitarian assistance literature has rightly been preoccupied with describing the dimensions of that operating environment and with seeking to understand better what conditions and characteristics of organizational structure and operation might lead to improved service delivery processes and outcomes.