BRR
Introduction to WFPSS
Fourteen months after the Tsunami of 26 December 2004, humanitarian relief and recovery work continues to provide support to 450,000 Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) through the provision of temporary or transitional shelter, permanent shelter, and food and non-food items. At the same time, recovery activity has started to pick up pace, in terms of pledges and budgets being turned into plans, contracts and purchases of material and equipment that will be used for the reconstruction work.. Under current circumstances, both humanitarian and reconstruction work will be facing severe logistical bottlenecks. By working with WFP Shipping Services as a partner in planning their material procurement and supply chain the majority of these serious constraints will be obviated.
The humanitarian and recovery community in Aceh has limited choice of air, sea and road movement to transport and provision IDPs along the Tsunami ravaged coastline of Aceh province. Air movement is available through UNHAS or NGO aircraft, but the number of helicopters and aircraft is gradually being reduced, with consequent impact on flexibility and capacity. Sea movement depends upon a dwindling inventory of commercial vessels that have limited capacity and capability. Road movement is precarious: some locations cannot even be reached by road, some only by 4x4 vehicles, and fewer still by 15 ton trucks. This will only continue to worsen during the current rainy season and until new roads are constructed, as existing roads were not built to withstand the heavy traffic required to meet the logistical demands of the humanitarian and reconstruction community.
The Plan of Action for Temporary Shelter of the Office of the United Nations Recovery Coordinator for Aceh and Nias (UNORC) was signed by the Governor of Aceh and the Director of the Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Agency for Nanggroe Darussalam Aceh and Nias (BRR), on 29 September 2005. Pursuant to this Plan of Action, an estimated 600,000 metric tones of non-food items are planned for reconstruction in Aceh, including the islands of Simeulue and Nias in the next twelve months.
WFP has been requested by the UNORC to facilitate the sea delivery and logistics coordination of these items. Following an assessment of the requirements and operational constraints by a team of WFP senior logisticians and shipping officers to Aceh province in the second week of October 2005, WFP is committed to providing this service to the UN Agencies, BRR, the IFRC and other NGOs involved in the reconstruction.
This Special Operation, know as WFP Shipping Service, will enable WFP to provide shipping services and logistics support to on-going humanitarian and reconstruction work through the establishment of a common-service sea freight service along the East, North and West Coasts of Aceh Province, and the islands of Simeulue and Nias.
WFP Shipping Service will provide the services on an incremental basis to the Users. WFP Shipping Service will implement a call forward mechanism based on pipeline predictions and User demand.
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