This research examines whether greater effectiveness and efficiency in humanitarian supply chains can be achieved by adopting a cybernetic approach to information flow. It looks at how, by taking a holistic view of humanitarian supply operations, the issues that arise due to the complexity in humanitarian supply networks can be resolved systematically. It also considers how individual organisations’ supply chains exist within a complex logistic network and how decision-making in one stakeholder organisation can have major, but unintended effects on other stakeholders. Such conflicts can arise as a result of marked differences in stakeholders’ aims, ethos and attitude towards resources. Only by taking a holistic approach to examine the humanitarian supply network can the information which flows vertically through the hierarchical structures of stakeholder organisations and horizontally between stakeholders be fully understood.