TNT, UPS and the other members of the United Nations’ Logistics Emergency Teams (LETs) have beenasked to mobilise immediately in order to help deal with the famine and increasing humanitarian
crisis in the Horn of Africa as the World Food Programme (WFP) gears up to airlift food intoSomalia.Peter Bakker, former TNT CEO and now an ambassador to the United Nations, yesterday spoke withthe four LET members (TNT, UPS, Agility and Maersk), calling on them to treat the emergency inSomalia, Ethiopia and Kenya with the same urgency as they recently have done with Haiti and thePakistan floods.
Bakker, who had returned from a trip to Somalia at the weekend, said: “When you see childrenaround you who are not going to survive until next week, you realise that this is not a theoreticalcrisis.”
The LETs unit is a cross-company partnership to support humanitarian relief efforts duringnatural disasters and is the first multi-company commitment to the humanitarian sector. TheLogistics Emergency Teams are groups of experienced logistics personnel (such as warehousing,fleet, air and reports officers) ready to be deployed to an emergency within a timeframe of 48hours, following requests from the United Nations’ World Food Programme (WFP) on behalf of theLogistics Cluster, for which WFP is the lead agency. The cluster coordinates the logisticalresponse of the humanitarian community at times of disaster.
Bakker’s comments came following an emergency meeting of the international community held inRome on Monday on the famine and drought in the Horn of Africa. Representatives from the G20, UNagencies and NGOs warned the crisis could spread if action is not taken now.
The WFP executive director Josette Sheeran told the emergency meeting that the world had to actto prevent a catastrophe. Noting that WFP had received over $225 million in pledges in recentweeks, she announced that airlifts of fortified food products into Mogadishu, Somalia, would beginthis week.
