Pandemics and Supply Chain Management: The influence of the United Nations.

Chapter 1: Introduction

The looming threat to progress could exacerbate the diseases' virulence as it evolves and spreads throughout the world. The global progress in ensuring equitable and comparable access to vaccinations, particularly for vulnerable populations in low-income countries, remains limited. The World Health Organization (WHO) announced in October 2021 a strategy to ensure widespread availability of Covid-19 vaccines by mid-2022.

(Ananworanich and Heaton, 2021). 

The dissertation will consist of six chapters: an introduction, a literature review, a research methodology, findings and results, a discussion and analysis, and a conclusion. The introduction provided background information relevant to the research topic and presented the issue to identify an appropriate solution. The literature review is followed. Research questions will be explored under various themes that are relevant to the research topic.

Research questions will be examined from the perspective of the respondents to the questionnaire or survey participants, as well as through a systematic review. The chapter findings and responses collected from the participants, as well as the findings from the literature review, will be evaluated. The evaluation will be discussed further in the discussion and analysis chapter. The conclusion will be drawn in the final chapter.

Research Limitations

Research questions relevant to the research topic include:

The aim of this study is to review the literature regarding the current UN systems in the supply chain management of medical products during the COVID-19 pandemic and to outline major bottlenecks that hinder Supply Chain Management to life-saving equipment.

Research Objectives:

Chapter 2: Literature Review

The dissertation seeks to understand the influence of the United Nations (UN) on supply chain management around health commodities during major public health events such as pandemics. The role of the UN system in global supply chain management during pandemics has been extensively studied in the recent literature. The role of the World Health Organization (WHO) in regulating global supply chain management to ensure equitable access to life-saving equipment and supplies during COVID-19 pandemic has been extensively examined. (Ritchie et al. 2020).

The current roles of the UN system on SCM and its effectiveness

The United Nations has therefore launched a global logistics platform to facilitate the distribution of medical products and equipment worldwide. Barykin et al., (2021) investigated the impact of the digital logistics platforms by the UN system on the BRICS countries (BRICS is an acronym referring to the developing countries of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa). In the study, it has been found that the global logistics platform, which the UN launched during the COVID-19 pandemic, was the most effective. It has also been observed that the development in logistics has been seen in countries like Brazil, Russia, India, and China, which are also members of the UN system. As a result, the manufacturing and supply of medical products and equipment were quickly facilitated without any obstacles. This further helped reduce the shortage of life-saving equipment during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The United Nations has made many efforts to help its member states during the COVID-19 pandemic. Cozzolino et al., (2012) researched the humanitarian supply chain by the United Nations World food program. This research has highlighted the fact that the COVID-19 pandemic has devastated the lives of many individuals around the world. The shortage of medical supplies, equipment, and food among people worldwide is a result of this. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the United Nations launched the COVID-19 supply chain task force to facilitate the easy distribution of medical supplies and commodities. The UN's initiative helped its member states greatly by increasing the pace of medical equipment and commodities worldwide during the COVID-19 pandemic. Yu et al., (2021) investigated global supply chain disruptions and their impact on the socioeconomic status around the world during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study found that the UN's COVID-19 supply chain task force provides significant benefits to its member states: Russia, India, Spain, Russia, and Chile. The COVID-19 supply chain task force helped improve the supply of medical commodities and product supplies in these members states.

Biswas and Das (2020) investigated potential barriers in commodity supply chain management during the COVID-19 pandemic. According to the research study, the lockdown and restriction imposition during COVID-19 became the largest bottleneck in the transportation systems and the ports. It was therefore difficult to make medical equipment and commodities available to the public overseas. (Singh et al., 2021).

Furthermore, it has been observed that healthcare units around the world were highly dependent on distributors and third-party logistics to have adequate availability of medical equipment and life-saving commodities during a pandemic. The above strongly suggests that the procurement process of the healthcare units should be more flexible and adapt to the COVID-19 crisis (Remko, 2020). The lack of coordination between the manufacturers and distributors has been viewed as a concern during a pandemic. This further disrupts supply chain operations for medical equipment and commodities (Omar et al., 2022).

Due to this reason, it became difficult for health professionals to maintain their protection while managing the patients' health during the COVID-19 pandemic. Furthermore, due to the lack of PPE and other essential commodities, it became difficult for the public to foster their health and self-care during a pandemic. Therefore, people experienced a high mortality rate globally during COVID-19 (Zhang et al., 2023).

How the UN helped to distribute medical supplies during a pandemic.

To overcome the critical shortage of medical equipment, the United Nations launched the Tech Access Partnership. The partnership aims to increase the production of essential life-saving equipment during COVID-19 and make it accessible to many people around the world. The partnership has also been found to bring together the United Nations technology bank, the United Nations conference on trade and development, the United Nations development program, and the World Health Organization. The primary objective of this comprehensive partnership is to connect the manufacturers globally. Their expertise will help foster the development of technologies and equipment that help meet quality health and safety standards. This can help the country recover (www.UN.org).

Cheng and Tavakoli, (2020) researched the use of technology and the healthcare systems during the COVID-19 pandemic. In this research study, it demonstrates that every nation was short of essential healthcare equipment, making it difficult to survive the COVID-19 pandemic. The UN put in place efforts to make it easy to get medical equipment. 

The main purpose of establishing this is to ensure equal access to medical supplies during the pandemic, such as COVID-19 testing kits, treatments, and vaccines, to ensure the health of individuals in both big economies and low and middle-income countries. Van De Pas et al. (2021) investigated equitable access to the COVID-19 vaccine during a pandemic This research examines the inequal access to the COVID-19 vaccine during the pandemic among wealthy and low- to medium-income countries. Van De Pas et al. (2021) reported that the Covid-19 Tools accelerator (ACT-A) proved effective during the Covid-19 pandemic. Act-A was established by the UN system mainly under the COVAX plan for the equal distribution of the Covid-19 vaccine worldwide to have equal access to both big economies and low and medium-income countries. COVAX (who.int).Furthermore, the involvement of the World Health Organization (WHO) has also been viewed in the procurement and allocation or distribution of life-saving equipment especially vaccines and laboratory testing kits during the COVID-19 pandemic (World Health Organization, 2021).

The research by Hunt et al. (2020) focused on access to life-saving equipment or resources in African countries. In this research, the role of the WHO, the United Nations agency, has been highlighted in providing equitable access to medical resources in African countries. Hunt et al. (2020) reported that the WHO cooperated with the African CDC to establish a supply chain task force in Africa for easy procurement and the allocation of life-saving equipment. Thus, the WHO helped low-income countries of Africa access medical products essential for managing Covid-19. Furthermore, WHO coordinated in providing fair pricing for the Covid-19 medical products so that they can be easily accessible and within the affordable range of people residing in African countries. Hunt et al. (2020) also stated that the World Health Organization provided funding to African countries like South Africa, Kenya, Zimbabwe, and Morocco. This helped improve the availability of personal protective equipment during a pandemic.

Chapter 3: Research Methodology

Research approach

The primary objective of employing mixed methods research in this dissertation endeavour is to enhance comprehension of the thesis title. The qualitative approach is also used to generate a comprehensive description and interpretation of the data, to make quantitative results more comprehensible, or to determine the broader relevance of small-sample qualitative findings. A case study is considered a qualitative research method even if you are doing a quantitative survey.

Research strategy

The case study approach has been employed. The case study approach provides an in-depth examination of the UN system's role in regulating supply chain management during the COVID-19 epidemic. Furthermore, the case study approach provided an in-depth understanding of the challenges and issues encountered during the COVID-19 pandemic in the management of medical equipment supply chains.

Qualitative data collection

The case study approach has been employed to collect data. This method has been used because it has been used to look into areas or research questions that haven't been studied in depth before. In this approach, the data was collected from documentation, such as reports, mainly from government sites. The literature review encompasses approximately 600 reports, of which 100 were deemed to be more appropriate due to their alignment with the research topic and exploration of the research questions. Furthermore, the systematic literature review approach was employed in the qualitative study methodology to examine the influence of the United Nations on supply chain management during the COVID-19 epidemic. 

To assess the United Nations' influence on supply chain management during the Covid-19 pandemic, relevant research articles were collected and examined. Armani (2020) says that a systematic review collects a lot of primary data and using this strategy would help me find different ways to explain the research study findings. So, this helps find and emphasize the importance of reputable sources because they are thorough, repeatable, and precise in expressing the findings. A qualitative data analysis was used to synthesize evidence from various research designs in order to clarify key ideas and identify gaps in evaluating the impact of the United Nations on supply chain management during the COVID-19 pandemic. The qualitative search methodology was used to identify and evaluate the initial set of 1500 research papers, and 200 papers were ultimately selected for further review and evaluation based on the quality of the journal articles, published documents, and scholarly articles related to the topic of the research. Is this an archive review as Yin suggests? http://cemusstudent.se/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/YIN_K_ROBERT-2.pdf

Quantitative data collection

Ethical considerations

The choice of a mix-method research technique is as important as the research's ethical considerations. Because data analysis and outcomes are more subjective, it is important to consider potential ethical considerations when conducting qualitative and quantitative research. This can make it harder to keep the data consistent. To conduct a study on the thesis topic "Pandemics and Supply Chain Management: The Influence of the United Nations," researchers must be aware of the goal of their research proposal, including how they will obtain data findings and use them to provide clear benefits to themselves. The selection of research methods, including systematic reviews, interviews, online surveys, and the Delphi technique, must meet established criteria for authenticity and reliability. You did not discuss all these different data collecting techniques above. The data for this research project is properly referenced by naming the authors and including their citations and references. The data are accurate, and the author made the tables in this study proposal. To prevent plagiarism, it is also important not to copy the same material from each research article. The most recent data is easy to understand and available to the public. According to whom?

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