WEF-sponsored LETs and HRI meetings

During April, WFP participated in various meetings in Geneva (Swtizerland). Most notably, the Logistics Emergency Teams (LETs) meeting sponsored by the World Economic Forum (WEF). The three member private corporations attended, namely Agility, TNT and UPS, to review the existing partnership with the Global Logistics Cluster led by WFP. Since the beginning of 2008, these three leading logistics and transport companies have been providing active and coordinated support to humanitarian logistics in emergency responses. The first operational LET pilot was tested in several parts of  Indonesia during 2008. For a period of 3 weeks, a team provided support to WFP with its Logistics Capacity Assessment (LCA) as well as various other analyses.

In the discussions, all three LET members indicated satisfaction with the Global Logistics Cluster and WFP’s lead. In addition, various decisions were reached to build on the current working relationship.

With a similar backing from the WEF, the Humanitarian Relief Initiative (HRI) ‘aims to increase the global impact of private sector engagement in humanitarian relief.’  The HRI also held a meeting which was organized by OCHA in April. It was useful that the LETs meeting results and guidance on engaging the private sector/corporate partners were shared by the LET members.