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Game Theory and Disaster Relief

The challenges faced by disaster relief organizations are immense, and many organizations compete for funding from similar donors. Additionally, organizations hyper-focused with aiding those in need act in an uncoordinated manner (which is typical in emergency situations), which results in inefficiencies and redundancies in terms of donation collection and distribution. This triggers a surplus of items as well as a deficit of others. In order for victims to be properly aided, the volunteers need to focus on critical relief tasks rather than sifting through donations that are not as critical (i.e, extra clothes vs bottled water and medication). Additionally, the cost to the nation in damages is significantly high. Reducing redundancies in this process will help mitigate some of the costs associated with disaster relief. It is hypothesized that half of a million people will require federal aid post-Hurricane Harvey, with that number subject to increase after Hurricane Irma. From both a humanitarian and fiscal perspective, it is in our best interest to collaborate.

While the article notes that it is uncommon for Game Theory to be used to analyze relief efforts, it becomes increasingly clear that there is a necessity for this. The author argues that by using Game Theory, we would be able to more efficiently help those in need. This makes sense because if we coordinated efforts between the multiple organizations rather than siloing efforts, the shared goal of helping as many people as possible could be achieved. In this way, organizations are essentially pooling financial resources and focusing on some aspect of the effort rather than trying to cover everything.

So why don’t they work together? The individual struggle for organizations to collect donations and survive creates competition between organizations. Donations are strongly correlated to media coverage/recognizability so it is beneficial for organizations to be everywhere at all times during a relief effort even if it decreases overall efficiency. This connects to the prisoner’s dilemma where the prisoners hope is to act in their own self-interest but when they both do they wind up achieving a less-than-optimal outcome. If they had worked together, they would have achieved the best outcome. If we could work with donors and the government to eliminate the competition between these relief organizations, we’d be able to achieve higher success in response efforts – and probably more cost-effective ones, too.

Sources:

http://www.salon.com/2017/08/31/response-to-natural-disasters-like-harvey-could-be-helped-with-game-theory_partner/

https://phys.org/news/2017-08-response-natural-disasters-harvey-game.html

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