LSS System

In light of this, since 1992 PAHO/WHO’s Emergency Program promoted LSS/SUMA as a tool for managing supplies and humanitarian assistance. More than twenty years after it was launched and widely implemented in and outside the Region, LSS/SUMA has become a proven methodology that can be used as the basis for logistical organization during the preparedness phase and as a tool in response activities. 

The SUMA humanitarian supply management system was launched in 1992 under the auspices of PAHO/WHO as a joint effort by the Latin American and Caribbean countries. Since then, the system has evolved into LSS/SUMA, an initiative supported by five United Nations agencies (WFP, OCHA, UNICEF, UNHCR, and PAHO/WHO). This tool, deployed through a simple system that can be used by organizations large and small, makes it possible to oversee the entire supply chain when managing humanitarian assistance during emergencies and to properly manage humanitarian assistance on a day-to-day basis. 

The LSS/SUMA system is based on practical and field experience acquired in dozens of emergencies of all types, natural and complex disasters, and public health crises. LSS/SUMA is used extensively not only in Latin America and the Caribbean but worldwide—not just for immediate emergency response, but as an ongoing logistics coordination system. In Pakistan, for example, LSS/SUMA is still being used —long after the 2005 earthquake— in the WHO and Ministry of Health warehouses not only in Islamabad, but in remote sites such as Muzafarabat, where users trained by PAHO/WHO have been replicating the system in other nearby localities. The same has happened in places such as Lebanon, Somalia, Gaza, Egypt, Libya, and Indonesia. 

The LSS/SUMA system is based on practical and field experience acquired in dozens of emergencies of all types, natural and complex disasters, and public health crises. In the Region of the Americas, PAHO has worked over the years with a wide array of agencies, ministries of health, emergency management organizations, NGOs, the Red Cross, armed forces, United Nations agencies, etc. These entities have contributed to the organization of humanitarian assistance during emergencies or to the day-to day organization of supplies and logistics, as many of them manage assistance not only during emergencies. 

The LSS/SUMA system has been used in every major emergency that has occurred in the Region in the last 20 years. Moreover, every country in the Region has received extensive training in the use of the system, enabling organizations and countries to take ownership of the tool and make it a standard part of their emergency preparedness and response plans. Some countries, such as Bolivia, Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, and Peru, have even issued official ministerial decrees making it an official tool for managing humanitarian assistance under their emergency response laws. In the Dominican Republic, the use of the LSS/SUMA system has resulted in the creation of an entire national warehouse system used in cholera response. In Panama, the Ministry of Health uses the system to manage supplies on a daily basis. Similarly, during major emergencies, such as the H1N1 outbreak in Mexico, the system complemented existing systems in the states.

 The implementation of LSS/SUMA in the country’s 32 states supported the management of supplies needed for that particular emergency, enabling the authorities to consolidate and share information at the national level.

A significant financial contribution has been also provided by the government of the Netherlands for 8 years and by others: England, United States, Canada, Germany and the European Community Office for Humanitarian Affairs, ECHO. 

The Logistics Support System (LSS) was created to expand the experience of SUMA in the Americas while looking ahead to building a global interface that serves agencies, NGOs, and donors, as well as countries. For the creation of the LSS, three global meetings took place which were sponsored by WFP, OCHA, WHO and PAHO. At these meetings, more than 50 experts from the UN and NGOs defined the parameters of the tool. 

Background 

The UN Joint Logistics Center (UNJLC), chaired by OCHA, has been promoted and implemented by WFP to provide an overview on the provision of specific humanitarian supplies worldwide. The UNJLC system is now well-recognized not only by UN agencies, but also by the Red Cross and principal international humanitarian NGOs. The UNJLC has been able to gather data from a wide variety of agencies who previously had not shared this type of information so openly. The Internet-based system has been successfully used in a number of countries, most particularly in the context of the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan and Iraq. 

The Humanitarian Supply Management System, supported by a network of professionals at both national and regional levels, has more than 3,000 trained volunteers. 

The Humanitarian Supply Management System (in Spanish, el Sistema de Manejo de Suministros Humanitarios, or SUMA), supported by a network of professionals at both national and regional levels, has more than 3,000 trained volunteers. Initially these volunteers were from the Americas, but today, they increasingly come from other regions. The SUMA system is designed to operate with information technology which is readily available in low-income countries. Originally it targeted the health sector, but has been expanded during the last decade to integrate all humanitarian relief items. Support from the government of the Netherlands brought about the creation of this system in 1990. The implementation of the SUMA system in the Americas over the last decade has been made possible thanks to support from other agencies in the U.S., Canada, the United Kingdom, Sweden, and the European Union. SUMA provides detailed information on relief items for inventory control. It is also a transparency tool, as it assists the coordinating institution in compiling data from all agencies which are willing to participate as well as to report to the international community on what has physically reached the field reception site. OCHA has endorsed the SUMA system, and it takes part of the OCHA/UNDAC team training. 

In the last few years, agencies running the UNJLC and SUMA systems, together with large institutions such as IFRC, UNHCR and WFP who have been implementing newly developed tracking systems designed for their internal use, have gained significant insight into issues related to logistics support. In this context, UN agencies (WHO, WFP, OCHA, UNICEF, UNHCR, and PAHO) have agreed to join forces in order to consolidate the experience gained by both UNJLC and SUMA into a single Logistics Support System (LSS). The system will improve coordination at national or international levels among all interested humanitarian partners, and will develop local capacity as well. LSS is being constructed based on the experience of a large number of institutions, and it aims to facilitate the exchange of information among humanitarian agencies. It will complement agency-specific commodity tracking systems that are increasingly being developed by larger humanitarian entities. 

In summary, LSS combines the strengths of these two successful initiatives, both of which have operated in different environments and have served complementary purposes. A joint instrument that is available to all institutions will minimize duplication and improve the response to the actual needs of the affected populations, while also building on the management capacity of institutions.