Design and incentive decisions to increase cooperation in humanitarian relief networks

During humanitarian relief operations, designated facilities are established to assist the affected population and distribute relief goods. In settings where the authorities manage the operations, they instruct the population regarding which facility they should visit. However, in times of crises and uncertainty, these instructions are often not followed. In this work, we investigate how the authorities should invest in incentivizing the population to follow their instructions. These decisions need to be combined with those concerning the relief network design. The population’s behavior and level of cooperation are key factors in deciding on the incentive investments. We present a new mathematical model that incorporates decisions regarding which populations to incentivize to follow the local authorities’ instructions. Then, we develop properties that can help the authorities decide on the level of investment in incentives. A numerical study demonstrates that incentives can improve the system’s performance and enable an equitable supply allocation. Furthermore, an investment in a small number of communities is typically sufficient to significantly improve the system’s performance. We also demonstrate that incentives affect relief-network design decisions.