Linking Geopolitical risk, performance, and resilience in Humanitarian Supply Chains: Lessons from Mauritania's Mbera Refugee Camp

Lier le risque géopolitique, la performance et la résilience dans les chaînes d'approvisionnement humanitaires: Leçons du camp de réfugiés de Mbera en Mauritanie

Mohamed Eida and Aziz Douari
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Mohamed Eida: LAREGMA - Laboratoire de Recherche en Economie, Gestion Management des affaires - FEG SETTAT - Faculté d’Économie et de Gestion de Settat
Aziz Douari: LAREGMA - Laboratoire de Recherche en Economie, Gestion Management des affaires - FEG SETTAT - Faculté d’Économie et de Gestion de Settat

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Abstract: This study investigates how geopolitical stressors shape the performance and resilience of humanitarian supply chains, using the Mbera refugee camp in Mauritania as a focal case (2018-2014). While performance in humanitarian contexts is typically assessed through indicators such as delivery timeliness, stockouts, lead time, coverage, and unmet needs, these outcomes cannot be explained solely by logistics. The analysis demonstrates that political disruptions are decisive drivers of underperformance. Forecast-based planning systematically overestimated delivery capacity, with actual results diverging sharply in years of heightened geopolitical instability. Resilience practices, including prepositioning, rerouting and adaptive calendars, improved some outcomes but were consistently curtailed when political conditions restricted access. Donor conditionalities further moderated this relationship, limiting the effectiveness of otherwise viable resilience measures such as local procurement or cash assistance. By operationalizing geopolitics as a measurable variable through composite Geopolitical Risk Index, this research shows that humanitarian underperformance is primarily political before it is logistical. The findings highlighted the need to embed geopolitical indicators into forecasting, policy, and operational design, offering both theoretical contributions to humanitarian supply chain literature and practical guidance for agencies and donors operating in fragile contexts.

Keywords: African Scientific Journal; Sahel WFP UNHCR; Humanitarian supply chain; performance; geopolitics; donor restrictions; Sahel; WFP; UNHCR; Mauritania; refugee camps; Humanitarian supply chain performance geopolitics donor restrictions (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
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Published in African Scientific Journal, 2026, Vol. 3 (No 34 (2025) ( F )), pp.0999. ⟨10.5281/zenodo.18695378⟩

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-05531803

DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.18695378

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