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Humanitarian Relief Initiative (HRI)
Saving Lives, One Partnership at a Time
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The issue
The frequency and impact of natural disasters and conflict are increasing worldwide, causing economic losses of over US$ 200 billion and over 180,000 deaths in 2005 alone. The result is the need for an unprecedented level of life-saving humanitarian relief. While the private sector has been increasingly generous, corporate response to humanitarian emergencies generally has been reactive, limiting its overall effectiveness and efficiency.
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The Humanitarian Relief Initiative aims to increase the global impact of private sector engagement in humanitarian relief. The HRI develops public-private partnerships (PPPs) that match the core competencies of the private sector with the priority needs of the global humanitarian community in advance of humanitarian crises.
The opportunity
The HRI is a valuable element of global corporate citizenship, offering the following benefits to corporate partners:
How to participate?
- Support the HRI at the strategic level across industries as a Strategic Partner
- Join at an industry level through an Industry Partnership to develop an industry-wide commitment to humanitarian relief
- Provide direct support to the humanitarian community through action-oriented PPPs
See overleaf for examples of industry-specific action in the area of humanitarian relief (Figure 1).
What has HRI achieved?
Since its launch at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in January 2006, the HRI has been working to increase the impact of private sector engagement in humanitarian relief through the following activities:
1) Facilitating the development of public-private partnerships in which companies engage in stand-by resource commitments to the humanitarian sector:
- Logistics and Transportation - the Logistics Emergency Teams (see Box 1)
- Engineering and Construction - the Disaster Resource Network: A global group of engineering and construction firms as well as two national chapters in India and Mexico committed to providing expertise and equipment for response and relief operations
- Healthcare – a group of healthcare firms committed to increasing their impact on emergency healthcare delivery
2) Developed a set of cross-industry guiding principles for private sector engagement in humanitarian relief:
- Through 18 months of consultations with UN agencies, NGOs, and businesses in partnership with the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN OCHA)
- Principles launched at the 2008 Annual Meeting in Davos
3) In cases of emergency, supporting the engagement of private sector companies in response operations:
- Proactively reaching out to partner companies with requests for further support as necessary
- Acting as a conduit through which information on company responses can be shared with the private sector as well as the humanitarian community at large
Who is involved?
The current key partners of the HRI are:
1) Companies:
- Logistics & Transportation: Agility, TNT, UPS, DPWN / DHL
- Engineering & Construction – through the Disaster Resource Network: HCC, Grupo Marhnos, CH2MHill, Fluor, Washington Group, Skanska, and Amec
- Healthcare: Becton Dickinson, Henry Schein, Merck, and Johnson & Johnson
2) Humanitarian Actors:
- UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)
- Logistics Cluster – headed by the World Food Programme (WFP)
- Emergency Health Cluster – headed by the World Health Organization (WHO)
- Shelter Cluster – headed by the International Federation of Red Cross / Red Crescent Societies (IFRC)
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Box 1: Logistics Emergency Teams
The Logistics Emergency Teams, or LETs, are a unique, pioneering example of collaboration between several companies and the humanitarian relief sector. Agility, TNT and UPS, three leading logistics and transport companies, joined forces by developing these teams to help the humanitarian sector with the logistics of emergency response to large-scale natural disasters.
LETs’ support includes providing logistics specialists (e.g. airport coordination, airport managers and warehouse managers), logistics assets (e.g. warehouses, trucks, forklifts) and transportation services. LETs will intervene for the first three to six weeks following natural disasters such as earthquakes, floods, or storms.
The companies stand ready to deploy Logistics Emergency Teams worldwide upon request from the United Nations Global Logistics Cluster. The nature of the request, local situations and the companies’ available resources will dictate the teams’ size and composition. As a general rule, they will serve in countries where member companies already operate, thereby leveraging their knowledge of local constraints. A committee representing the member companies is to answer requests from the Global Logistics Cluster led by the UN World Food Programme and decide on the deployment of LETs.
"When an emergency strikes, we must be able to rapidly mobilize the appropriate assistance and ensure it reaches those in need in the quickest manner possible - in order to do this sometimes we turn to the corporate world to assist us" said Amer Daoudi, WFP's Director of Logistics, adding that it is admirable when companies, especially competitors, come together to save lives.'
The quality of the partnership was first demonstrated on the ground in August 2007 when Agility, TNT and UPS set up Logistics Emergency Teams in Indonesia during an operational exercise with the World Food Programme. In February 2007, UPS and TNT together offered free warehouses to the United Nations Humanitarian Response Depots run by the World Food Programme in Ghana and Panama.
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