Due to the latest catastrophes caused by both man and nature humanitarian logistics has
received increasing interest from academics practitioners and specialists. These interests are
increased as well by an expanding market of disaster relief and by the fact that disaster
relief supply chains are complex and dynamic not to mention that they have a lot of
uncertainties that make operations very complicated. Especially in disaster relief the supply
chains have to be fast agile and flexible in order to rapidly provide the appropriate amount
and type of emergency supplies to minimize human suffering or death. The last mile
distribution is the final stage of the disaster relief supply chain i.e. the delivery of
relief supplies from local distribution centres to beneficiaries affected by disasters.The aim
of this paper is to give an overview of supply chains in disaster relief identify the main
problems of the last mile distribution in disaster relief operations describe optimization
possibilities of the private sector and examine the applicability for disaster situations.
