PAHO's SUMA Goes Global

The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) and four other United Nations agencies have completed the first development phase of a new Logistics Support System (LSS), based on PAHO's SUMA system for the management of humanitarian supplies following disasters.

Both LSS and SUMA are software-based systems that help disaster response teams consolidate and share information, improve transparency, and register and monitor the distribution of undocumented items, particularly unsolicited donations.

The LSS software, like the SUMA system, is designed to help coordinate functions not covered by other systems used by major humanitarian organizations. LSS is an inventory control tool primarily for smaller agencies (including national institutions) that cannot afford the cost and human resources needed to develop their own systems.

To develop LSS, PAHO partnered with the United Nations Children's Fund, the World Food Program, the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, and the World Health Organization. The first phase of development of LSS included the actual writing of the software, based on input from all the participating organizations, as well as testing and quality control.

The next phase will involve the production of training materials, including manuals and software on CD-ROM, the creation of an LSS website, translation of the system into other languages, training of trainers, and field testing to be carried out globally.

LSS is designed to minimize duplication and improve how agencies respond to actual needs following disasters. The system will be available to all institutions and will build on their own capacity. More information on LSS is available from funsuma@racsa.co.cr.

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