How Princess Haya’s charitable fund will work
A new fund announced this week will deliver highly nutritious food as fast as possible to the world’s neediest people. James Langton explains how the initiative will work
Somewhere in the world a community is facing catastrophe. They have no food and no means to cook it. Malnutrition and death are just days away.
In these circumstances, lives may hang on a simple packet of biscuits – high-energy biscuits to be exact, packed with energy and micro-nutrients. Each packet is enough to feed a person for one day.
This week it was announced that Princess Haya of Jordan had contributed to a new fund to quickly buy stocks of the biscuits. The fund will be managed by the UN World Food Programme.
The gesture by the wife of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, Vice President and Ruler of Dubai, was described as “a lifesaver” by David Beasley, the executive director of the programme, who called Princess Haya “a true champion for people facing hunger and poverty”.
To the layman’s eye, the biscuits look unexceptional and not particularly enticing.
But that’s not the point, says Stefano Peveri, a senior logistic officer at the UN agency and manager of its Humanitarian Response Depot in Dubai.
“They’re not as tasty as you would buy in the supermarket,” Mr Peveri says. “But they are very nutritious and packed with micro-nutrients.”
The formula has changed over the years. The first biscuits were designed to provide a high-energy boost and could be kept for up to two years.
The current recipe delivers a more sophisticated package but has a shelf life of only 12 months. The UN programme is working to extend this, Mr Peveri says.
They are made at approved centres around the world, with the closest factory to the UAE being in Oman, which is owned by a Sharjah company.
The biscuits are kept in 100-gram foil packets and the current stock is 150 tonnes, enough for 1.5 million people, stored at the Dubai warehouse.
What happens next depends on the rapid-response system. Often the first sign of trouble is noticed by a local or country office of the UN programme. It could be a natural disaster, such as a famine or drought, or a refugee crisis provoked by persecution or conflict.
In recent years, the programme has supported Muslim Rohingya refugees fleeing to Bangladesh and displaced rural populations flocking to the Somalian capital Mogadishu looking for food.
Supplies were also sent to the Philippines in 2013 after Typhoon Haiyan, and Afghanistan in 2014.
In 2016, the programme bought 2.6 million tonnes of food worth US$41.36 billion (Dh151.92bn) and delivered 3.5 million tonnes to 74 countries.
In the same year, humanitarian response depots, such as the one in Dubai, sent out more than 87,000 tonnes to 12 countries on behalf of 170 organisations.
The biscuits are usually the only food source for first response, Mr Peveri says. The dire circumstances of those in need often mean they have no means of cooking:
“So there is no point in giving them beans or wheat,” he says.
The biscuits, Mr Peveri says, are only intended as a stop gap “for three or four days” until long-term support comes in with other agencies. They can be particularly useful for refugees still on the move.
“We can supply them half way and give them a vital boost of energy,” Mr Peveri says.
Once a local office has identified a problem the regional depots are contacted. Flights are then chartered and supplies of the biscuits sent to the closest airport to the affected population.
From here, the biscuits are loaded on to lorries or helicopters. “But we have also used elephants and camels,” says Mr Peveri. “Whatever works best.”
Speed is obviously of the essence. The WFP aims to have the assessment of needs and the funds made available for transport within 24 to 48 hours of being alerted.
A similar time applies to delivering supplies to those most a need.
“Not only do you need to have the biscuits available in places like Dubai, you need to be able to move them fast,” says Mr Peveri.
“I believe in this project, big time. It saves lives.”
The stock of biscuits is 150 tonnes, enough for 1.5 million people. It is stored in a Dubai warehouse