Humanitarian operations and disaster management have been increasingly challenging in recent years because of increased severity and frequency of natural disasters. Four most devastating natural disasters (i.e., the Asian tsunami, the Haitian earthquake, the Japanese earthquake, the Uttarakhand landslide) in the last 100 years occurred during the last decade. Despite the best efforts by several governmental and voluntary institutions, these disasters have caused significant loss of life and material resources.
The Amrita Center for Humanitarian Operations & Management under the Amrita School of Business, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham aims to study the organizational, managerial and behavioral issues pertaining to preparedness, response, relief, recovery, rehabilitation and reconstruction to better understand the operational intricacies and build humanitarian operations body of knowledge.
The objective of the center is to build on MA Math’s immense disaster and aid management experience to develop a scientific knowledge base of humanitarian operations. The knowledge building effort involves scholarly and applied research that includeanalysisof the experiences of affected communities, humanitarian NGOs, governments, international organizations and defense agencies that have been involved in managing disasters across the world. The center will promote interdisciplinary research for developing effective and affordable solutions.
Specifically, the center investigates into the following aspects of humanitarian operations:
The study findings will be published in academic and professional journals.In addition, the center based on past experience of humanitarian operations would develop case studies. The center will initiate field visits for better understanding of humanitarian operations and management concepts.