‘One step forward, two steps back’

 WFP, Dec. 2, 2020:‘One step forward, two steps back’

Four voices from the World Food Programme’s Common Services on overcoming the challenges of keeping the humanitarian community up and running when the pandemic kicked off.

 

 

COVID-19 has impacted transport systems like never before. The global connectedness we’ve come to rely on to move people and goods around the world ground to a halt as governments raced to stop its spread.

WFP stepped up to help. With thousands of tons of health and humanitarian cargo and over 25,000 passengers now transported, below four WFP staff recall how they dealt with the onset of the coronavirus crisis.

Stephen Cahill, Director of Logistics

We didn’t foresee that the virus would spread as quickly. Being in Italy, we saw firsthand what the virus could do, and having headquarters shut down had a major impact on our operations.

All our scenarios post-Ebola [outbreak in West Africa in 2014–16] looked at the fact that this pandemic would affect those countries with poor health systems. In reality, it was the exact opposite — it hit industrially advanced countries with much more developed health systems just as hard. (...)

Kanthum Duplessis, Aviation Officer, Southern Africa

I joined WFP at the end of March, from a commercial airline that I flew for.

The aim was to set up an Aviation Hub in Johannesburg, serving the southern region of Africa to complement already established hubs in Addis Ababa and Accra.

In full: https://insight.wfp.org/one-step-forward-two-steps-back-3e6fb4d4247d

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