Local Humanitarian Procurement: Leveraging Social Capital in Humanitarian Supply Networks for Community Resilience

In the last two decades, the humanitarian sector has faced escalating seasonal disasters and chronic emergencies, often without sufficient financing. Furthermore, while the localisation agenda has been widely accepted across the industry, operationalisations of the concept within purchasing and supply management remain nascent. Humanitarian networks are under increased pressure to rethink their operational processes. Humanitarian procurement, estimated to account for up to 20 billion euros a year, is vital to ensure necessary aid is available for response. However, predominant approaches to strategic procurement overlook the vital role these procurement contracts can play in the localisation agenda. As such, this thesis explores the potential for humanitarian procurement to become a new site for humanitarian organisations seeking to increase their impact and support community resilience.
This thesis uses the theoretical lens of social capital. Social capital is the potential and real intangible benefits accrued by and in relationships. Peri-crisis, social capital can be activated toward a goal, for example to access information, inform action, and enhance collective access to aid. This composite thesis investigates how humanitarian supply networks can repurpose or leverage social capital during procurement processes, in order to promote community resilience. In the first paper, a systematic literature review is offered and Local Humanitarian Procurement is proposed as a procurement strategy for humanitarian organisations and United Nations agencies, seeking to align operational processes with localisation and community resilience efforts. In the second paper a semi-structured interview study conducted during pandemic response is presented, in which peri-crisis access to and activation of social capital is found to be important in enabling local procurement. Finally, in the third paper a comparative case study of two displacement contexts is provided, through which local humanitarian procurement strategies are designed using linking social capital to theorise community resilience outcomes.
For humanitarian organizations, this thesis offers insights into how procurement is impacted by socio-relational factors. These factors impact the way procurement is conducted, who has access to these processes, and how these processes are understood and engaged with at a network level. The thesis builds upon previous research to provide a more comprehensive understanding of how humanitarian supply networks may address localisation and community resilience. Theoretically, the thesis contributes to an understanding of social capital. The thesis suggests that activation of social capital is as important as quality or quantity. Further, the thesis outlines an understanding of how the characteristics of social capital can be balanced against one another during linking activities, such as during procurement processes.