How the international community saves lives in conflict prone countries or insecure places is becoming increasingly relevant and important to global affairs. With more people displaced around the world than at any time since World War Two there is an urgent need for humanitarian agencies to deliver more and more aid to more and more complex environment. This is not just in Africa, but in the middle east and beyond.
On the line to discuss the nuts and bolts of one of these relief operations is Laurent Bukera, who runs the World Food Program’s operations in Somalia. We have a pretty fascinating conversation about how a humanitarian agency like the World Food Program operates in profoundly difficult environments beset by insecurity and terrorism.
Laurent walks me through some of WFP’s operations in Somalia–that is how they deliver aid and some of the challenges of working in that country. These challenges includes not only threats from terror groups like Al Shebaab, but more broadly extremely low levels of infrastructure development. To deal with some of these obstacles the WFP is rolling out some new technological innovations, which we discuss toward the end of this episode.
If you have 20 minutes and want to learn how a humanitarian agency delivers aid to people, even when faced by the threat of terror and violence, have a listen.
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