Decentralized humanitarian aid deployment: reimagining the delivery of aid

Purpose Current centralized humanitarian aid deployment practices may encourage urbanization thereby weakening short- and long-term resiliency of lower-income countries receiving aid. The purpose of this paper is first, to explore these shortcomings within the peer-reviewed literature and, second, propose a starting point for a solution with a decentralized humanitarian aid deployment (DHAD) framework. Design/methodology/approach The authors conducted a focused, qualitative review of available and relevant literature. Findings The literature reviewed demonstrates that current centralized humanitarian aid deployment models lack meaningful engagement of local assets while indicating a plausible connection between these same models and disaster urbanization. Next, the literature shows introducing a new decentralized model could represent a sustainable aid deployment standard for that country's specific response, recovery, mitigation and planning opportunities and constraints. Originality/value This paper discusses a topic that much of the literature agrees requires more research while suggesting a new conceptual framework for aid deployment best practices which is also largely absent from the literature.