BONN: July 05, 2019. Deutsche Post DHL Group has begun supporting Enseña por Colombia, a member of the global Teach For All network that recruits and develops future leaders to teach in countries with under-resourced schools and communities.

DPDHL now supports 19 partner organizations around the world to help improve the life skills and employability of young people in Argentina, Bangladesh, Chile, Ecuador, Germany, India, Lebanon, Malaysia, Peru, the Philippines, Spain and the UK.

In addition to Colombia, 2019 has also seen DPDHL start supporting partner organizations in Armenia, Mexico, Paraguay and Uruguay to focus on improving employability for young people with a less advantaged background or situation.

To achieve this goal it provides a wide range of vocational qualification and orientation opportunities supported by its employees who leverage their expertise as mentors and trainers. Last year the company provided internships and other career opportunities to more than 7,200 children and young people.

“Our local employees are highly motivated and thus a major force for the expansion of our partnership with Teach For All around the world,” commented Deutsche Post DHL Board member for Human Resources Thomas Ogilvie. “Providing access to good education for every child on this planet is crucial for our future: Excellent education should not be a privilege.”

Pictured: Deutsche Post DHL Board member for Human Resources Thomas Ogilvie; CEO DHL Colombia Daniel Viteri; CEO Express Colombia Allan Cornejo Retana; CEO Supply Chain Colombia Robinson Vásquez Escobar; and Margarita Maria Saenz of Enseña por Colombia.

MAPUTO, Mozambique: March 21, 2019. Grindrod South Africa has diverted its 14,357dwt container vessel MV Border to deliver humanitarian aid from Maputo, Mozambique to the port region of Beira, devastated by Cyclone Idai.

According to local aid officials and relief agencies, 90 percent of Beira, a city of 500,000 people, and its surrounding area has been destroyed (picture: flooding in Mozambique - WFP).

Between 1987 and 2006 disasters affected 19.2 million people in Mozambique, one of the world’s poorest countries and most vulnerable to natural disasters and the effects of climate change.

Six days after Idai made landfall, reports suggest the human toll in Mozambique could exceed 1,000 with many hundreds more in Zimbabwe and Malawi.

The aid vessel, operated by Grindrod’s Ocean Africa Container Lines, arrived in Maputo earlier today where it is loading consolidated humanitarian aid shipments prior to departing for Beira on March 22 and arriving the following day.

“Our thoughts are with the people of Mozambique. We pray for their safety and hope that you all come through this without any harm,” said Andrew Waller, CEO Grindrod Limited.

The Maputo Port Development Company (MPDC), a partnership that includes the Mozambican Railway Company Grindrod and DP World, has provided two warehouses for the consolidation of aid from Mozambique’s disaster management organisation (INGC), the Mozambican Red Cross, WFP and other UN organizations, COSACA and Islamic charities.

Meanwhile a B747 aircraft arrived in Maputo on March 19 carrying 51 tonnes of relief shipments from Save the Children including 8,400 tarpaulins, 3,500 terry cans, 2,500 buckets and 20 tents.

The aid agency said it has begun delivering supplies to Chimoio, a town in the west of the country that lies close to the path of the cyclone where thousands are homeless and cut off by flooding.

As part of the COSACA aid consortium with Oxfam and Care, Save the Children is working to make Chimoio a key logistics hub for the aid response.

Machiel Pouw, the aid organisation’s response team leader in Mozambique commented: “As we fight to gain access to more and more of the country, the needs are skyrocketing. These supplies will help families store and carry safe water to guard against disease, and shelter from the continuing rains, both in the area around Chimoio and elsewhere in the country.

“It is incredibly tough to get to communities that have been cut off by the disaster. But we are working round the clock to get everywhere children need us and we have already started flying our prepositioned stocks of tents into Beira,” he continued.

A 97-tonne shipment of aid from Dubai’s International Humanitarian City (IHC) arrived at Maputo on March 20 loaded with medicine, telecommunications equipment, tents, and shelter toolkits. The aid came from stocks maintained at the IHC by the World Food Programme's telecommunications and coordination support services team, the World Health Organization, Save the Children, Catholic Relief Services, the Swedish Agency for Development and Cooperation, and the Adventist Development and Relief Agency.

The flight was arranged by the IHC to support the UN Humanitarian Response Depot (UNHRD), a logistics consortium of UN agencies and NGOs involved in relief and development.

LONDON: May 31, 2019. Eddie Stobart Logistics is helping to raise money for Transaid by donating the naming rights of one of its tractor units via a charity auction at Multimodal 2019 next month.

Founded by Save the Children, The Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport (CILT) and its Patron, HRH The Princess Royal, Transaid is a development organisation that works with partners and governments in 23 countries to help people build the skills they need to transform their lives.

The naming auction will be held during the Freight Transport Association Multimodal Awards ceremony on June 18, the first evening of the Multimodal show, which takes place at the Birmingham NEC from 18-20 June 2019.

“Transaid do outstanding work which makes a real difference to people’s lives, and the Eddie Stobart team are proud to be helping them in their mission,” said the company’s Communications manager Julie Daintith.

Transaid works to provide safe and available transport in two core areas, road safety through improving the quality of driver training in Africa (pictured), and access for rural communities to health services by strengthening transport systems.

“Eddie Stobart trucks are famous for having female-only first names and with a four-year waiting list for the honour of naming them, it’s an incredible money-can’t-buy opportunity for us to be chosen,” commented Transaid fundraising head Florence Bearman.

“It’s the exhibitors that make Multimodal dynamic and exciting, creating an event that is ideal for building connections and growing businesses,” added Rob Jervis, Logistics Portfolio director for event organiser Clarion.

Now in its 12th year, Multimodal is the UK, Ireland and Northern Europe’s premier freight, transport, logistics, and supply chain management event. 

DUBAI: February 06, 2019. DHL Global Forwarding has established a Global Competence Center for Humanitarian Logistics and appointed Fatima Ait Bendawad, with 15 years experience in creating, providing and implementing solutions for complex humanitarian operations, as its head.

The Center will offer NGOs, aid agencies, their suppliers and manufacturers a range of services including air and ocean freight, Customs clearance, warehousing and local distribution of humanitarian shipments.

With its geographical location and longstanding reputation as a cluster for global aid and relief organizations, Dubai currently plays host to several major logistics hubs including the International Humanitarian City, the largest humanitarian hub worldwide from which nine United Nations agencies and 48 NGOs currently run operations.

“The level of preparedness – whether it be expedited Customs clearances, readiness to handle dangerous goods like chemicals or medicines, or processes for on-ground collaboration between multiple agencies – directly correlates with the efficiency of humanitarian logistics,” explained Ait Bendawad (pictured). “Our work on the front line, has helped us build and maintain familiarity with the nuances of compliance, regulation and international standards that apply to movements of critical goods,” she added.

DHL has extensive experience in disaster management activities including the deployment of its Disaster Response Teams to provide on-ground logistics support in natural disaster zones; and the Get Airports Ready for Disasters programme, which runs joint workshops with the UN Development Programme to prepare local airport management for the logistical issues associated with natural disasters.

In a related announcement The Logistics Emergency Team (LET), made up of humanitarian logisticians from UPS, A.P. Moeller Maersk, Agility and DP World, has published its 2018 annual report.

In the past 13 years LET has responded to 17 major emergencies and provided essential information to help humanitarians prepare for and respond to emergencies worldwide.

At the World Economic Forum in January last year, the four partners agreed to expand their involvement to provide logistics support in “complex emergencies” that escalate due to different external hazards such as drought or a massive influx of refugees; and support for preparedness activities which have proved to be key for how quickly and effectively people can be reached when a disaster strikes.

As a result, expanding the LET role has meant more regular requests for support at a much smaller scale. One example in 2018 was the supply of five reefer containers by Maersk, DP World and UPS which were needed to support the delivery of temperature sensitive pharmaceuticals including vaccines and cholera medicine in response to the humanitarian disaster in Yemen.

LONDON: May, 17, 2019. Antonov Airlines and Bolloré Logistics recently completed an aid flight from Chalons Vatry Airport, France to Beira, Mozambique in the aftermath of Cyclone Idai. In addition to a 65-tonne payload of relief supplies, an AN-124-100 aircraft also carried logistics staff from aid organisations.

In order to respond to the humanitarian needs of 1.85 million people affected by the cyclone, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) is appealing for US$36.4 million for its emergency response for the next six months to September 2019. As of April 30, the appeal is currently funded at 33 percent.

The UN is urgently seeking an additional US$282 million of relief aid over the next three months to June 30, 2019. As of April 20, the Humanitarian Response Plan is funded at US$116.2 million, 24.3 percent of funding requirements of US$337 million.

Commenting on the operation to Beira, Antonov Commercial manager Paul Bingley said: “Speed and efficiency are key when flying aid to a disaster area, and after the aircraft arrived in Vatry, loading took five hours to complete. We were ready for take-off by the time we received the final over-flight permits, working closely in cooperation with our partner, Bolloré Logistics Nord-Sud.”

The cargo included malaria treatments, five water purification stations, and over a thousand tents and shelters to support the humanitarian efforts taking place in the wake of severe flooding after Cyclone Idai.

“The Bolloré Logistics office in Beira, which was at the epicentre of the disaster, provided support staff to facilitate the unloading of the cargo, and having all the necessary expertise, provided handling, administration and the final delivery,” added Charter director Karine Dantier.

Meanwhile, three weeks after Cyclone Kenneth made landfall in northern Mozambique on April 25, over 300,000 people continue to need humanitarian assistance in the coastal provinces of Cabo Delgado and Nampula. An estimated 45,000 houses have been damaged, many totally destroyed and more than 1,400 houses remain flooded, according to the government.

Pictured: Children on Ibo Island in northern Mozambique stand next to their newly reconstructed house while a shelter team installs a tarp on the roof.

LONDON: December 27, 2018. A report from Christian Aid says 14 climate change-related events last year cost a minimum of US$60 billion while “killing, injuring and displacing millions”.

The most financially expensive disasters identified by the report were Hurricanes Florence and Michael, which hit the US and parts of Central America and the Caribbean, causing damage initially estimated at US$17 billion and US$15 billion respectively.

Four of the 14 events cost more than US$7 billion each and are likely to be underestimates as in some cases they include only insured losses, says the aid agency.

While the report focuses on the financial cost of climate change-driven extreme weather events, in many developing countries it says the cost to vulnerable communities is even higher due to slow-onset droughts, weather change and sea encroachment.

Other disasters last year covered by the report include a drought in Argentina that slashed soybean and corn crops, at a cost of US$6 billion, and helped tip the country into recession; floods in Kerala, India that killed 500 people and forced more than a million from their homes; floods in Japan that killed 230 people followed by record-breaking heat and then Typhoon Jebi, the most powerful storm to hit the country for 25 years; Typhoon Mangkhut in the Philippines and China that killed 133 people and destroyed 10,000 homes; drought in Cape Town, South Africa that nearly led authorities to shut off the water supply to 75 percent of the city; and wildfires in California including the ‘Camp Fire’ that killed 85 people and was the deadliest and most destructive in the state’s history.

“Climate change is something still often talked about as a future problem, not least because we know the consequences of the warming climate are so devastating and don’t want to face up to what is already happening,” explained Christian Aid’s Global Climate lead Kat Kramer. “The great injustice of climate breakdown is that the people that suffer first and worst, are the world’s poor that have done the least to contribute to the crisis.

“History will judge us on how we act now, as there is still a window of opportunity to avert more suffering,” she added.

Michael Mann, professor of Atmospheric Science at Penn State University commented: “The impacts of climate change are no longer subtle. We are seeing them play out now, on our television screens, newspaper headlines and social media feeds. The unprecedented floods, droughts, heat waves, wildfires and superstorms we’ve seen in recent years - they are the face of climate change. The world's weather is becoming more extreme before our eyes - the only thing that can stop this destructive trend from escalating is a rapid fall in carbon emissions."

Indonesia’s third major natural disaster in six months has claimed the lives of at least 429 people and injured 1,485 after a tsunami hit coastal areas along the Sunda Strait on December 22. With at least 16,082 people displaced and 154 missing in the five districts affected by the tsunami, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has deployed teams to provide local health support. (Picture courtesy MSF.)

Report

ERBIL, Iraq: April 15, 2019. Staff from the UN Development Program (UNDP) and Deutsche Post DHL are conducting a ‘Get Airports Ready for Disaster’ (GARD) workshop this week in partnership with the Kurdistan Regional Government Joint Crisis Coordination Centre.

The five-day event will provide training to a mixed group of 30 airport staff as well as employees from government agencies at Erbil International Airport on how to prepare for post-disaster logistics.

In addition to security issues, Iraq continues to face multiple threats from natural disasters including drought and desertification, floods, sandstorms and earthquakes.

“As a frequent responder to help after natural disasters, we at DPDHL see it over and over again – airports quickly get overwhelmed by the chaos of incoming relief aid, UN and NGO personnel, military organizations and the crowds of people trying to leave,” explained DPDHL vice president Humanitarian Services Chris Weeks.

“Add to this the fact that humanitarian aid sometimes arrives faster than the airport can organize for it to get out, and you get a massive bottleneck in the flow of relief logistics. Timing is critical during a disaster and the more efficient an airport is at processing incoming aircraft, the faster aid can get out to those in need.”

Last month Weeks and a DHL Disaster Response Team were deployed to Mozambique after Cyclone Idai destroyed 240,000 homes and left 1.85 million people in need of humanitarian assistance - including one million children and nearly 75,000 pregnant women.

Commenting at the time Weeks said: "One and a half weeks after the disaster conditions in this part of Mozambique remain critical. The rain hasn’t let up, the floodwater can’t drain away and the river continues to rise. Right now, the airport in Beira (pictured) is one of the few places in the city that is dry and has functioning infrastructure.”

The GARD workshop in Iraq is expected to determine airport capacity to process high volumes of passengers, cargo and warehousing relief supplies and areas for disaster logistics operations.

“We welcome this first-of-its kind initiative as it will further enhance our crisis management capacities to respond to disaster-affected people. We extend our thanks to UNDP Iraq and DPDHL for conducting this programme,” declared Hoshang Mohamed, director general of the Kurdistan government’s Joint Crisis Coordination Centre.

DHL and the UNDP have conducted nearly 50 GARD workshops in 24 countries since 2009 including Tehran (2017), Almaty (2017), Aqaba (2016), Amman (2014), Yerevan (2013) and Beirut (2012).

Vakhtang Svanidze, the UNDP Resident in Iraq said airport preparedness matters because the threat of natural or man-made disasters remains high. “Due to torrential rains, the country continues to witness large scale floods which have claimed lives, displaced people and destroyed property. The Mosul Dam poses significant risks to the lives and livelihoods of the vulnerable communities along the Tigris flood plain,” he explained.

“Managing the logistics of a large-scale disaster response can be complex. Air transport is crucial to providing smart and speedy humanitarian aid” and therefore UNDP actively advocates for the vital role of airport preparedness for efficient disaster response,” he added.

UPDATE: On April 12 the last DRT members moved out of Beira, their first deployment in Africa. According to DPDHL, the team moved nearly 800 tonnes of incoming humanitarian aid from approximately 50 aircraft for further distribution to those affected by the disaster.

AMMAN, Jordan. December 11, 2018. The United Nations has begun a “one-off” delivery of 11,200 tonnes of humanitarian aid to 650,000 people in Syria.

Over the next four weeks, some 369 trucks representing six UN agencies and one NGO are using the Jaber/Nassib border crossing between Syria and Jordan (pictured), reopened in October after a three-year hiatus.

“This is a major logistical operation in an effort to mitigate the suffering of the Syrian people,” said Anders Pedersen, UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Jordan. “We greatly appreciate the cooperation of the Jordanian authorities for their full support and commitment in making this a reality.”

The last cross border UN operation to Syria from Jordan was on June 25 this year. Since then the Syrian government has retaken control of its southern border. Across the country humanitarian actors, including UN agencies and NGOs, are trying to reach 13 million people in need, including 6.2 million internally displaced.

A report published this month by the Moving Energy Initiative (MEI) says humanitarian agencies spent US$1.2 billion on diesel and gasoline last year, and despite a UN commitment to carbon neutrality by 2020 there’s no effort by aid organisations to lessen their fossil-fuel dependency.

The MEI surveyed 21 aid actors in Burkina Faso, Kenya and Jordan recently and determined they pay too much for fuel, have no incentive to change, and there’s little transparency in their budgeting process.

According to report authors Owen Grafham and Glada Lahn, the aid sector could save at least 10 percent of fuel costs on ground transport, 37 percent through behaviour change and more efficient technologies, and 60 percent on energy generation – all using currently available, affordable and proven practice and technology changes. “At current prices, this could mean operational savings of over US$517 million a year for the humanitarian sector, roughly equal to 5.0 percent of UNHCR’s funding gap for 2017.”

Grafham and Lahn say adopting sustainable energy practices through fleet sharing and fuel management would help humanitarian agencies build positive relations with host-country governments and societies. They cite a case in Jordan, where the installation of solar plants for two major refugee camps are saving UNHCR US$7.5 million annually while relieving pressure on the national electricity grid, and providing a legacy asset for local communities.

The MEI is a collaboration between Energy 4 Impact, Chatham House, Practical Action, the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) and UNHCR, with funding from the UK Department for International Development.