We have broadened our support to the humanitarian community by fostering partnerships, promoting transfer of knowledge and facilitating innovation, enabling a quicker and more effective response to people in need.
This Year in Review provides an overview of our work in 2023, based around our platform pillars:
● Supply chain solutions: our network of hubs continued to play a vital role in enabling UN agencies, NGOs and governments to respond to new conflict outbreaks in Gaza and Sudan, with ripple effects in Chad and South Sudan, and to the earthquakes in Türkiye, Syria and Afghanistan, as well as to protracted, and often forgotten, crises around the world.
● Strategic partnerships: we hosted a drill exercise to test the prototype of an infectious disease treatment module developed as part of the INITIATE project; kicked off a multi-agency taskforce focused on coordinating and optimizing stockpiling strategies; and strengthened our partnership with the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) on training and simulation exercises.
● Research and development: the UNHRD Lab contributed to operations and projects across the platform, including by providing technical expertise to INITIATE, field operations and capacity-building workshops.
As always, this report reflects the indispensable contribution made by our donor community, host and non-host countries and other partners to supporting our sustainable growth. We welcomed new contributions from the Government of Dubai and from the Ministry of Government of Panama to the running costs of the hubs they respectively host. In addition, donors such as EU Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations (ECHO) have intensified their support as strategic operational partners, including offering, through UNHRD, an unprecedented number of free flights to our partner community.
Last but not least, across the sections, it highlights the work of our people: from those on the frontline, in our warehouses, on the tarmac, in the field and in our training centres, to those operating behind the scenes in customer service, procurement, finance, admin, data and systems. Their dedication and relationship-driven culture are widely recognized by our partners as one of the most compelling aspects of our value proposition.
To our team, our colleagues in the World Food Programme (WFP), our partners and our donors: thank you for your engagement and your contribution to the UNHRD platform.
For data on weight, volume and value of goods delivered to crisis responses, see Operational highlights.
In 2023, 44 partner organizations relied on our network of hubs to dispatch their stocks and organize deliveries across the world. This number has remained steady for the past five years.
Beside WFP, which relies on our hubs to deploy support equipment and emergency food, the partners making most use of our services are: UN agencies such as the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), the World Health Organization (WHO), including the Pan American Health Organization, PAHO, the regional office in the Americas, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and UNHCR; governments including those of Ireland and Italy; inter-governmental organizations such as ECHO and the ASEAN Coordinating Centre for Humanitarian Assistance on Disaster Management (AHA Centre); and NGOs such as ShelterBox, Action Against Hunger (ACF) and World Vision.
Looking back over the past few years, the number of consignments peaked in 2020 prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic response, with ripple effects in the following two years. In 2023, the consignments decreased by some 22 percent compared with the average for 2021–2022, while the total weight and volume of cargo increased by 46.7 percent and 13.5 percent respectively. This can be interpreted by considering that in the previous years a large number of consignments included personal protective equipment and other health supplies that are lighter and less voluminous compared to relief items used in post- hazard and conflict emergencies such as in 2023.
The top 10 priority supplies delivered in 2023 included shelter items such as blankets, tents, toolkit, tarpaulins and kitchen sets; emergency food such as fortified biscuits; jerry cans and other water and sanitation items and hygiene kits; and support equipment, most notably prefabricated storage tents.
By total weight, we dispatched 66 percent of the cargo from our warehouses, while 9.4 percent was managed as direct deliveries from suppliers. The remaining 34.7 percent was either dispatched from our partners’ warehouses or transited through UNHRD.
Here, we provide details on four emergency responses: the Türkiye - Syria earthquakes; the Sudan regional crisis; the earthquakes in Afghanistan; and the conflict in Gaza.
In February 2023, a series of powerful earthquakes struck southern and central Türkiye and northern and western Syria. In Türkiye, the earthquakes impacted a region of 15.6 million people living in 11 provinces, of whom 1.7 million were Syrian refugees. Of those affected in north-western Syria, some 4.1 million people already depended on humanitarian assistance as a result of the ongoing conflict in the country.
In Syria, the earthquakes came amid a cholera outbreak and harsh winter weather, including heavy rain and snow. The most important needs identified in early assessments were winterization, hygiene, shelter and food.
Considering the level of destruction and weather conditions, emergency shelter for displaced populations and support equipment to fill logistics gaps were the most urgent needs to be addressed. Top priority items shipped to Türkiye and Syria were blankets, tents and winterization kits, kitchen sets, tarpaulins and toolkits as well as health and hygiene kits. Together with prefabricated storage tents, equipment also included accommodation units for humanitarian staff.
On 15 April 2023, violent clashes erupted between rival militaries, pushing Sudan to the brink of catastrophe. Record numbers of people were already facing the consequences of a longstanding complex crisis fuelled by rising food and energy costs, an economic crisis, conflict and displacement, weather-related disasters and poor harvests.
The conflict has forced millions of people from their homes, contributing to one of the worst displacement crises in the world. By December 2023 around 6.7 million people in Sudan had been displaced, 5.3 million of them internally, while 1.4 million have fled to neighbouring countries. Around 500,000 people have taken refuge in Chad, itself already dealing with a prolonged multidimensional crisis, while South Sudan has mainly received returning nationals who had been living in Sudan as refugees.
Following a brief operational halt because of the high levels of insecurity, WFP resumed operations in early May 2023 and dispatched prefabricated storage tents and other logistics equipment. Throughout the response, we shipped about 100 of these structures for WFP’s operations across Sudan, Chad and South Sudan. On 15 May, we deployed a field expert to Eastern Chad to support with logistics assessment and lay out the setup of storage tents in locations close to the border with Sudan.
Considering large numbers of displaced populations, the most important supplies shipped to the three countries were mosquito nets, kitchen sets, tarpaulins, hygiene kits and jerry cans.
Four large earthquakes, all registered at the same 6.3 magnitude, struck the Herat province in western Afghanistan on 7, 11 and 15 October. Based on multi-sectoral assessments, a total of 48,347 families in 382 villages were directly affected, leaving more than 275,000 people in need of urgent shelter assistance and non-food items before the onset of winter. Within hours of the initial earthquakes, the UN and NGO partners started sending emergency food, shelter materials, winterization kits and health and hygiene supplies.
This series of seismic events compounded one of the largest and most complex humanitarian crises in the world. Affected populations and vulnerable communities across Afghanistan were already grappling with the effects of four decades of conflict, prolonged droughts and climate-induced crises, recurrent natural hazards, high levels of displacement and returnees, combined with the erosion of multiple human rights, in particular women’s equality and participation in public life.
At the onset of the first earthquake, with a flight offered by the EU, we dispatched WFP fortified biscuits and ECHO family tents with their winterization kits; we also facilitated the shipping of WHO medical supplies on board the same aircraft. Over the following weeks, with additional EU-funded flights, we dispatched more shelter items together with medical supplies. Accounting as a complex crisis, we are illustrating operational data for the entire year.
The latest round of hostilities has led to an intense bombing striking targets in the Gaza Strip, including residential buildings and health care facilities, killing thousands of people.
By the end of the year, 1.9 million people in Gaza, or nearly 85 percent of the population, were estimated to be internally displaced, and in need of humanitarian assistance.
Between 13 and 16 October, we dispatched 20 MT of fortified biscuits and four prefabricated storage tents for WFP, including via two flights offered by the Dubai International Humanitarian City (IHC). With humanitarian needs skyrocketing, it became imperative to expand the logistics and operational capacities of the Egyptian Red Crescent which has been responsible for receiving and storing international aid on behalf of the humanitarian community and facilitating its dispatch into Gaza. As such, storage tents and other logistics equipment have remained some of the most important material shipped, in combination with emergency and ready-to-eat supplementary food parcels, shelter items such as tarpaulins and kitchen sets, hygiene kits and medical supplies.
On 16 October, we deployed our first field expert to Egypt to work with the WFP-led Logistics Cluster to support the Egyptian Red Crescent to set up and manage aid hubs at the border with Gaza and within the Gaza Strip, followed by two more staff from Accra and Brindisi. These colleagues joined efforts with partners on the ground to install and run equipment delivered from our hubs, including prefabricated storage tents, temperature-controlled units and inflatable cold rooms.
As well as supply chain solutions and partnerships, the operation has drawn on our specialized training programmes and research and development expertise. For example, we facilitated the deployment of a WFP colleague from the Afghanistan country office who had recently taken part in a UNHRD technical workshop at our hub in Brindisi. This meant he could bring with him up-to-date knowledge on how to install and maintain prefabricated structures.
The UNHRD Lab played a vital role in developing the inflatable cold rooms installed at Al-Arish, Egypt. Our research and development team worked with the supplier of an existing similar product to adapt it for use in humanitarian operations, focusing on ease of transport, rapid installation, packaging, energy efficiency and maintenance.
In addition to the sudden onset emergencies, we also supported partners' responses to Cyclone Mocha in Myanmar, the earthquakes in Nepal, the floods in Libya and the refugee crisis in Armenia. At the same time, we dispatched partners' relief items and equipment to protracted crises such as in the Darién region of Panama where the number of refugees and migrants crossing the perilous jungle route reached an unprecedented 500,000 – more than double than in 2022. The longstanding and multifaceted crises in Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Yemen and Haiti as well as the conflict in Ukraine also registered a large volume of deliveries.
In 2023, we continued to strengthen our position as a strategic platform by fostering collaboration, building capacity, nurturing partnerships and encouraging innovation within the international humanitarian community, at the same time as facilitating critical initiatives aimed at enhancing emergency preparedness and response efforts.
The module was designed and developed as part of INITIATE, the initiative co-led by WFP and the World Health Organization (WHO) and implemented through UNHRD. INITIATE brings together emergency actors, research and academic institutions to develop innovative solutions for tackling humanitarian emergencies, including outbreaks of infectious diseases.
Since the workshop held in 2022, where the key components of the IDTM were identified, the UNHRD Lab has worked closely with the INITIATE design team to start configuring the system. The first prototype was assessed during production in May 2023 and then delivered to UNHRD Brindisi where partners gathered to install and test it. The drill exercise, with logistics and medical scenarios designed in collaboration with the University of Tübingen (Germany), ran over five days in June 2023. It gave emergency response professionals, including field practitioners, logisticians and health officials from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Guinea, Malawi and Uganda, the opportunity to assess the functionality of the system in stress scenarios.
The design team is now using feedback from the drill test to modify the prototype before further testing in a simulation exercise in a field location. This will also provide opportunities to develop a playbook for installation, usage and maintenance as well as training scenarios, and to socializing the innovation. INITIATE partner organizations are then expected to stock units across UNHRD hubs ready for rapid dispatch at the onset of an emergency.
Our research and development unit, the UNHRD Lab, has played a fundamental role in INITIATE since its seeds were planted in the early stages of the COVID-19 outbreak.
Throughout the development and testing of the IDTM, the UNHRD Lab contributed expertise in deep field logistics, industrial design and market research to ensure that the structure met some key requirements: rapidly deployable, easily transportable, extendable, self-contained and self-sufficient. Find out more about our contribution in this video.
In the months following the first installation and drills, the UNHRD Lab has collaborated with partners to test the prototype in a realistic environment at our Brindisi hub. These findings – including relating to weather mitigation, ventilation, structural mechanics, repair kit practicality and spare parts composition – will be incorporated into the second prototype.
The taskforce includes representatives from seven organizations: WHO, UNICEF, UNHCR, ShelterBox, the Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA), ACF and the Emergency Supply Pre-Positioning Strategy Working Group (ESUPS).
Step one was to analyse UNHRD data covering the past six years to identify the core relief items needed in the first 90 days of emergency response. Based on their knowledge and experience, the partners refined this information by type of crisis and most shipped items.
The next step was to start an ongoing consultation with the wider humanitarian community to further refine the list of core items and assess stock prepositioning strategies, including the loan and borrowing of items, as well as gauging levels of interest in cooperating with the stock optimization plan.
The overall objective is to identify a list of first priority core relief items and equipment, define minimum required specifications, identify ceilings and propose recommendations for managing stock prepositioning which all partners can then follow. The goal is to ensure an effective, cost-efficient and timely response to future humanitarian crises with no duplication of effort.
The WEM is a flagship UNHCR training, which includes classroom sessions and exercises, scenario-based simulations, and practical skills training exercises. UNHCR has recognized UNHRD Brindisi as the ideal location thanks to facilities including a newly upgraded training centre, unique premises offering extensive space for specialized trainings, base camps and on-site accommodation, and the long-standing experience of our staff.
UNHCR and all partners organizing simulation exercises at UNHRD Brindisi also recognize the invaluable participation, facilitated by UNHRD, of local authorities and organizations which contribute to reproducing realistic scenarios. The Italian Navy’s “San Marco Marine Brigade” and the Italian Red Cross are among those who join the drills to reproduce their roles or play the parts of other actors involved in a humanitarian crisis. In October, with a view to hosting frequent WEM sessions and training activities at UNHRD Brindisi, UNHCR expanded on its existing Technical Agreement with WFP for the provision of UNHRD’s services, signed in March 2008, to strengthen partnerships in this area.
In 2023, our hubs in Accra, Brindisi and Kuala Lumpur hosted and provided services to 24 training activities and workshops forsome 950 participants, including from the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), Malaysia National Disaster Management Agency (NADMA), Medair, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), UNHCR, WFP Emergency division, Global Fleet, Global Logistics Cluster and other divisions and units.
We joined the AHA Centre to co-facilitate the ASEAN – Emergency Response and Assessment Team (ERAT) Level 2 Course on Humanitarian Logistics in Singapore. The 30 participants joined a growing pool of certified specialists who stand ready to support the National Disaster Management Organizations of ASEANMember States in responding tocrises across the region.
In November, as part of its specialized training offer, UNHRD successfully delivered the first edition of a Logs Base Lab in Brindisi with 14 WFP participants from 11 country offices. The workshop included technical training on how to install the latest innovative structures for emergency logistics bases, including a semi-permanent storage unit with solar panels and prefabs. Participants shared their experiences and ideas for future training courses to ensure we have capacity to efficiently install logistics bases in emergencies. Building a capacity strengthening pathway, UNHRD also supported the deployment of workshop participants to Al-Arish, Egypt as part of the response to the humanitarian emergency in Gaza.
In 2023, new funding from host countries such as Panama and the United Arab Emirates ensured that contributions reached their highest level since the expansion of the UNHRD Network in 2006. Donors also increased their strategic operational support, offering airlifts to partners and the wider humanitarian community at the onset of emergencies and through the early response period.
Thanks to the space made available by our host governments, UNHRD partners saved, on average, US$8.4 million in storage fees globally in 2023.
Throughout November and December 2023, ECHO supported the expansion of the Egyptian Red Crescent’s logistics capacity in the north-east of Egypt through the WFP-led Logistics Cluster and UNHRD. This vital support has expanded inter-agency storage and cargo consolidation operations at multiple locations in Egypt and facilitated transport of food and lifesaving assistance to the people of Gaza. Read more.
From strengthening our teams to improving our digital presence, here are some key activities we worked on behind the scenes in 2023.
In 2023, as an important step to strengthen our teams and deliver against our Strategy for 2022–2025, we completed a full organizational review with support from WFP Human Resources colleagues. We placed strong emphasis on harmonizing team structures across the Network and in identifying long-term skill and talent solutions. The new structure will be implemented throughout 2024.
To improve our service offering in this area, we have worked with the WFP Management Services Division to design an online tool for our partners to request access to our training facilities and related services, which is currently being piloted at our Brindisi hub. Whether it's accessing training rooms, logistical support, or specialized equipment, the hub provides a user-friendly interface for organizations to optimize their training experiences and ultimately enhance their humanitarian response capabilities. Through this platform, users can easily explore available facilities, select preferred services and dates, and submit requests with ease.
Behind that holding screen, we were working on completely refreshing our narrative to better reflect the shift from describing UNHRD as a network of hubs to a humanitarian platform and provide a clearer overview of our pillars: supply chain solutions; partnerships; and research and development.
In 2024, we will continue our focus on the priority areas identified within our strategy for 2022–2025, including workforce, partnerships, digitization and sustainability.
As we continue to improve our performance in core operations and strengthen our relationship-driven culture, the most critical priority will be to implement our new organizational structure. We will continue to engage more with local and regional partners through innovation journeys and targeted outreach during in-person workshops and meetings and through UNHRD Lab projects. The suite of tools available to partners, including digital tools, will also be enhanced to give users a more seamless experience when requesting services, such as booking training facilities, as well as better supporting decision making. Activities focusing on sustainability will continue and become more integrated into all aspects of operations and facilities through innovative solutions as well as works to upgrade the hubs.
