Negotiation issues in multinational humanitarian assistance/disaster relief

Large scale humanitarian assistance/disaster relief (HA/DR) operations often require the intervention and aid of various agencies from all over the world. As a result, HA/DR operations involve many negotiation and coordination issues. Although a number of studies have emphasized computer assistance for negotiations, it remains unclear how such information and communication technology could be employed in HA/DR operations. This paper presents a framework for developing a global information network (GIN) for HA/DR operation. It derives a set of functional requirements and proposes system components for GIN that would facilitate HA/DR operations.