SUMA (Supply Management Project), a management tool for post-disaster relief supplies

Frequently in the wake of disasters, large amounts of humanitarian supplies arrive from multiple sources within the country or from abroad. Only a portion of these donations actually responds to specific requests from the affected country. A significant part consists of unsolicited donations whose value--in terms of meeting immediate, life-threatening needs--is questioned by many disaster managers. In 1990, WHO initiated a supply management project, known as "SUMA", to provide national authorities with a management tool and the skills to sort and inventory large amounts of relief supplies in a short period of time. It is a technical cooperation programme to assist the local coordinating agency to get an accurate picture of what is potentially available in the affected area, and to sort the most valuable relief items from those of doubtful usefulness. National authorities have developed their SUMA teams in many situations, both in Latin America and the Caribbean; this article describes three of these experiences. A flood in Costa Rica, in 1995, where the Red Cross assumed national responsibility for managing relief supplies donated locally. The earthquake in Paéz, Colombia, also in 1995, where the National Disaster Committee activated SUMA for all supplies sent to the disaster area, with the exception of specialized health shipments channelled through the Ministry of Health. In Haiti, in 1994, a complex disaster was compounded by a tropical storm. All civilian supplies arriving at the airport were processed by the SUMA team which included customs officers among its members. The traditional problem of unsorted and inappropriate supplies, noted in most international disasters, seems to have been negligible, a trend which can perhaps be credited to 20 years of preparedness activities in Latin America and the Caribbean. The superficial analysis of the data underlines the potential for operational research on the standardized databases generated by SUMA.