Successfully published since 2006, Relief & Development: Asia-Pacific, Middle East & Africa is produced to equip the international community with a single, up-to-date reference source, containing contact details (including e-mail/web addresses) on all organisations providing assistance in the critically defined regions. This is an essential prerequisite for all aid actors, particularly for identifying local suppliers of relevant goods and services in a period of heightened concern at the frequency and enduring aftermath of natural disasters and humanitarian crises.

Published annually and combining a structured regional focus with a global supplier guide, Relief & Development: Asia-Pacific, Middle East & Africa is a full-colour, perfect bound, semi-hardbacked oversized A4 format publication containing in depth editorial coverage and extensive listings covering the United Nations (UN), the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the International Federation of the Red Cross (IFRC), International Financial Institutions (IFIs), development banks, governments, Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs), civil society organisations and private sector (public-private) operators. The directory provides fundamental co-ordinates for both established and recent suppliers of goods and services aimed at relief and development activities around the world.

Easily accessible, relevant and targeted information is a vital component in decision-making where fragile conditions demand an optimum response. Invariably that imposes an urgency of delivery with narrow margins for material error, especially considering the uneven levels of dire national need and long term infrastructure requirements – rehabilitation, reconstruction and all-round sustainability. Strategies for maximising success in emergency relief operations or development projects are reliant on the availability of pertinent data sources. Accuracy of information is imperative: in the rapid assessment of circumstances on the ground, evaluation of the particular aid requirement, and consequently in determining the appropriate product/service to incorporate and deploy.

Relief & Development: Asia-Pacific, Middle East & Africa is designed to complement the wealth of expanding databases, internet content and mobile/interactive communications-derived knowledge, quite apart from expert research & development origination. This raises suppliers’ awareness of the procurement judgements by governments in the regions, aid agencies and development authorities, to provide its officials – in the field or at HQ – with contacts for a range of supply options. Lasting efforts to create local capacity, public-private partnership value and economic recovery are characteristically rooted in logistical experience, diplomatic flexibility and long view innovation commitment.

Fundamentally damaging forces – from the prevalence of disease (HIV/AIDS, Malaria, Tuberculosis) and chronic agricultural, industrial, environmental and social deficiencies to the proliferation of land mines and conflict destruction – inevitably begin to nurture the ability of international donors, agencies, businesses and corporate foundations to network with rapid anticipation.

Relief & Development: Asia-Pacific, Middle East & Africa presents an overview of these dynamics and the current international aid activity across the regions, examining the major specific impacts, contingencies and lessons to be drawn from diverse catastrophic events, including the devastation of Tsunamis through to the crisis in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Lebanon.

The UN’s Millennium Development Goals (MDG’s) provide an international benchmark that encourages the spotlight to fall on the ramifications of delivery and longevity of support for relief and development. The course of implementing target aims and the readjustments to re-track to meet results establishes a culture of persistent, purposeful aid action. Ultimately, within the constraints of unfolding global environmental change, sufficient input will be necessary to generate indigenous educational, managerial, technical, social and healthcare capacities ensuring national rehabilitation. The publication will reflect upon the realisation of such goals and, in coming editions, augment each with insight into actual eventualities including the honing and expansion of supplier relevance.