Management Control Systems and the 2011 Horn of Africa Drought
This paper evaluates the role of management control systems (MCS) in the international response to the 2011 Horn of Africa drought — described as the worst in 60 years — which killed more than 100,000 people across Djibouti, Somalia, Ethiopia, and Kenya. Despite early warning signs as far back as 2010, substantive relief was delayed until the crisis reached its peak. The paper identifies systemic flaws in organizational, national, and international response structures, examines how MCS characteristics such as accuracy, objectivity, integration, and flexibility influence crisis response, and analyzes the specific management failures that worsened outcomes. It concludes with recommendations for more effective early-warning utilization, risk management, and community-centered non-financial performance measures in future humanitarian responses.
- Introduction: Crisis overview and MCS relevance introduced
- Flaws in the Organizational, National, and International Response Systems: Systemic failures across governments and relief agencies
- How Management Control Systems Are Implicated in Crisis Response: MCS roles in accuracy, objectivity, integration, flexibility
- The Role MCS Played in the Unsatisfactory 2011 Response: Poor planning, risk management, and performance gaps
- Recommendations for Better Future Responses: Long-term programs, risk focus, and community measures
- Conclusion: MCS failures summarized; reform directions outlined
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What makes this paper effective
- Applies a clearly defined theoretical framework — management control systems — consistently across each section, giving the analysis coherent structure and academic grounding.
- Balances theoretical concepts (Mintzberg's crafting vs. planning, Otley's non-financial measures) with concrete empirical examples from the 2011 crisis, such as Ethiopia's planning miscalculations and Kenya's overreliance on food aid systems.
- Moves logically from diagnosis to prescription, identifying flaws before explaining their MCS causes and then offering actionable recommendations.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates applied theoretical analysis — taking a management framework (MCS) from the organizational behavior literature and using it as a diagnostic lens for a real-world humanitarian crisis. By systematically mapping MCS characteristics (accuracy, objectivity, integration, flexibility) onto observed response failures, the writer shows how abstract management concepts translate into life-or-death operational outcomes.
Structure breakdown
The paper is organized into six sections. The introduction frames the 2011 crisis and its relevance to MCS. The second section documents the specific organizational and governmental failures. The third section explains the theoretical role MCS play in crisis response across four dimensions. The fourth section traces how MCS shortcomings directly caused poor outcomes in 2011. The fifth section offers practical recommendations. A conclusion synthesizes the key arguments and calls for systemic reform in future humanitarian preparedness.
Introduction
The Horn of Africa experienced what was described as the worst drought in 60 years. The drought, caused by the failure of rains for two consecutive seasons, led to a severe food crisis across Djibouti, Somalia, Ethiopia, and Kenya, killing more than 100,000 people while placing hundreds of thousands more at risk of starvation. According to Hiller and Dempsey (2011), the greatest tragedy was that the world had seen this disaster coming, yet little had been done to prevent it. From as early as 2010, there had been clear indications of a looming crisis and its consequences. La Niña, a climate condition that produces drier than normal conditions across the entire region, had already been confirmed. Further warnings became more frequent and more urgent in 2011.
In light of all these warning signs, it is therefore rather surprising that a proper response from the international aid system came only after the rains failed for a second successive time — by which point the crisis had already reached its peak and millions had been affected. This revealed significant flaws in the international emergency system and pointed to the ineffective application of management control systems (MCS) by national governments, relief agencies, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in responding to disasters.
By definition, management control systems are a set of communication structures and systems that organizations use to collect information and to apply it in evaluating the performance of different organizational resources. They provide information that enables the management team to direct behavior and steer the organization towards its competitive advantage and strategic objectives. In responding to crises like the Horn of Africa drought, it is imperative for national governments and organizations to apply management control systems that lead to timely and effective responses. This paper evaluates the 2011 drought in detail and examines how ineffective management systems may have contributed to poor responses by national governments, relief agencies, and NGOs. It identifies the flaws in these systems, evaluates how an organization's MCS are implicated in the response to a crisis, examines the role MCS played in the poor response to the 2011 crisis, and provides recommendations for better responses in future.
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