ETH Meets Berlin 2021: RETHINKING Humanitarian Aid
Dr. Bublu Thakur-Weigold attended the Hybrid ETH Symposium at the Berlin Science Week 2021. She presented her work and talked about the important contribution of humanitarian projects in the non-profit sector.
On November 5, 2021, the director of the HumOSCM Lab, Dr. Bublu Thakur-Weigold, attended the Hybrid ETH Symposium at the Berlin Science Week 2021 together with Andrew Parris from our partner organisation Medair, and Lea Ruesch (LSE).
Humanitarian aid work is primarily known through appeals for donations and through political action in the media. But there is much more to it than funding (inputs) or the political framework. Less well known is the fact that logistics can take up to 80% of the budget in a humanitarian response. Today, to get the most impact out of limited resources, science is increasingly engaged in making relief work more efficient and effective. With examples from ongoing research projects, the panelists show how industry-derived methods can make an important contribution in the non-profit context, getting life-saving supplies such as medicines or food to their destination faster. By reducing operational costs, humanitarian organizations can use their donations to reach more people in need.
