Offering hope to the world

An hour’s drive from the Burj Khalifa is a ‘free zone’ that not many often venture out to. Past the last metro station, past Ibn Battuta and Jebel Ali, past long stretches of shrub-speckled desert, past the construction site for the new airport and further down on the glorious Emirates Road there exists something of an industrial oasis.

The International Humanitarian City (IHC) created by the Government of Dubai to serve as a centre of aid, at first glance, resembles a set from Skyfall, the latest Bond movie. You’re reminded, by the sheer size of the place, of the scene where Javier Bardem and Daniel Craig come face to face in that huge ghost town. Except that IHC, with Princess Haya bint Al Hussein, wife of His Highness Shaikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, as Chairperson, is the largest logistics centre for the distribution of humanitarian aid in the world. It is anything but a ghost town. And there is no Javier Bardem.

Given its top-of-the line infrastructure, the IHC hosts 54 users that include UN agencies, government organisations and NGOs; bodies like Islamic Relief, Red Crescent and WHO all working towards delivering aid (food, blankets, tents, IT equipment, vehicles, hygiene kits) and supporting long-term economic development in areas steeped in crises.

On January 22, a shipment was sent to Jordan (for Syria) that included 53 tonnes of food supplements for children aged between six months and three years.

At IHC, just one of the players, The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) alone, has two sizes of warehouses — 15 of the 1000-metre warehouses and 15 500-metre warehouses. And this is just one organisation.

“We stock a lot of relief items, tents, even prefabricated warehouses,” says Elise Bjorn of the WFP.

The premises, the size of triple football fields, has several trucks all loaded and dispatched on time. The operation is large, systematic and efficient.

Inside, the offices lead to the warehouses, where money plants grow in abundance. There are statistics on posters on the wall with photos of children from Yemen, from Syria.

The blue-floored high ceilinged aerodrome-like storage units in one of the warehouses are piled up with food items – non perishables – on one side, and bullet proof exhibits on the other.

IHC stocks, among other things ‘almost medicated’ food items (‘medicated’ meaning unsuitable for regular healthy individuals for their concentrated dose of essential nutrients), especially for countries like Yemen which is in the midst of a humanitarian crisis with more than 10 million people — almost half the country’s population — either hungry or on the edge of hunger.

There are a lot of acronyms 
at IHC. If ‘HEBS’ mean high energy biscuits, MREs are ready to eat meals.

Stacks and stacks of ‘Plumpy Doz’ become especially relevant since child malnutrition rates in Yemen are among the highest in the world with close to two million Yemeni children under five years are stunted and one million acutely malnourished.

For its part, WFP reached out to almost five million people in 2012 with food assistance and plans to reach a similar number in 2013.

“As little as Dh2 can help WFP provide food assistance to at least one food-insecure person for a day in Yemen,” said Elise. WFP incidentally, reaches about 1.5 million people a month inside Syria with food assistance and helps hundreds of thousands of refugees who have fled into neighbouring countries.

“Working with the Syrian Arab Red Crescent (SARC), WFP is distributing food in both areas controlled by the government and the opposition — even in areas where fighting is going on,” said Elise.

The needs in conflict-rid areas are growing, with serious bread and fuel shortages across the country. “The Red Crescent estimates that at least a million more Syrians need food assistance, and we are working to overcome the challenges but we need donors.” It’s not difficult to do the math.

The more people shell out, the more stocks the Humanitarian City will hold and will help starving infants. As evidenced, space is no issue.

nivriti@khaleejtimes.com

• UAE