- Family Health International is looking for an associate director, health commodities logistics for Nigeria.
- The Global Fund is looking for a specialist procurement for their HQ in Geneva.
- Concern Worldwide is looking for a logistics manager for Liberia and a logistics and administration coordinator for Congo (DRC).
- UNICEF is looking for “a large number of new colleagues for multiple positions” (how is that for a job description?) for their supply division.
- Medair is looking for a logistics and warehouse manager for Juba (South Sudan).
Sudan
Logistics is so often an afterthought.All you programme managers, country directors, and other people managing aid programmes out there: how often do you integrate logistics planning into your planning from day 1 of your design phase? (And if any of you say: “always”, please let me know when you need an experienced logistics manager – I would just so love to work for you. Not that I would believe you, of course, unless you are a logistician by background yourself – and even then I would be sceptical.)
An old post by Diane Bennett on the Aid Watch blog tells a cautionary tale of what happens when you don’t integrate logistics into your planning. It is a seven-year history of how a lack of logistics planning caused thousands of deaths in remote South Sudan; not because the logistics weren’t thought of, but because they weren’t integrated into the programme from the start.
A medical NGO who wants to support a vaccination will have to take into account how to get the vaccines on the spot – and finding out much later that “… vaccines were available … at a regional distribution center, a $5000 air charter flight away” is too late. If UNICEF and WHO want to ensure vaccination on the spot, they will also need to ensure transportation to it, and possibly refrigeration there. All these should be planned from the start, because this tale clearly demonstrates how taking logistics on at a later stage will only lead to disaster.
But possibly the biggest issue here is that none of the three organisations involved really did their homework. Measles vaccines are fairly heat tolerant. If they would have been transported to the site in a cold box, and then used within a couple of days or even weeks (depending on the ambient temperature), no refrigeration at all would have been necessary. This technique, known as the ‘fast chain’, has been in use for some time and is endorsed by WHO; but apparently nobody managed include this in the planning.
The tale shows only one thing: include logistics and logisticians in your planning from the start, and you will sleep a lot better at night. And don’t we all want that?
Continue Reading 0 comments }Aid and aid work, Logistics, Public health
- Samaritan’s Purse is looking for a country logistics manager for North Sudan.
- Merlin is looking for logisticians in Manguredjipa/Butembo and North Maniema, both in the DRC.
- Avocats Sans Frontières (ASF) are looking for an administration, finance and logistics officer for Uganda.
- ACTED are looking for a country logistics manager for Pakistan, a logistics intern for the Central African Republic, and a logistician/security manager for Haiti. They also seem to have extended their deadlines for the vacancies for an HQ logistics support intern and a country logistics manager for Chad, which I posted earlier.
- The American Refugee Committee International (ARC) are looking for a logistics and security manager for South Sudan.
- A vacancy that is a bit out of the ordinary, but which I am very happy to see (for obvious reasons): Oxfam UK is looking for a learning and development manager (logistics and supply).
- Terre des Hommes is looking for a logistician-administrator for the Occupied Palestinian Territories, and an administration and logistics coordinator for Afghanistan.
- Merlin is looking for a logistician for Ivory Coast, and for logistics coordinators for ‘Africa’ (I’m not making this up!), Afghanistan, and Congo (DRC).
- UNICEF is looking for a cold chain/logistics consultant for Sudan; and a supply chain specialist for their HIV/AIDS centre and a contracts officer for their immunisation centre, both in Denmark.
- The OSCE is looking for a senior procurement and contracting assistant for Poland.
- Concern Worldwide is looking for a transport and logistics officer and a support systems manager for the DRC.
- The IRC is looking for a senior logistics manager for the DRC (looks like they upgraded their earlier vacancy?).
- MSH is looking for logistics coordinators for Sudan and Congo, and a procurement advisor for Haiti.
- The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) is looking for a procurement officer for Macedonia.
- HelpAge International is looking for a logistics manager for Darfur (Sudan).
- ACTED is looking for a logistics support intern at their HQ, a logistician/security manager for Afghanistan, and country logistics managers for Chad and Congo (DRC).
- The Population Council is looking for a regional coordinator commodity/logistics for Nigeria (note that this vacancy is not confirmed on the Council’s own web site, and that I am not exactly sure how reliable a site called ‘Confabee’ can be…).
- A similar issue with this vacancy: logistics coordinator for Medair in Kampala (Uganda) — not to be found on Medair’s own website.
- As with this one: Médecins Du Monde is looking for a logistics coordinator for Darfur (Sudan). However, I give ReliefWeb slightly higher points for likely reliability than the previous two.
- Action Against Hunger (AAH or ACF) is looking for a logistics coordinator for Pakistan, and for logistic officers for various locations.
- Tear Fund is looking for an area logistics officer for the North of Afghanistan.
- And one that is a bit out of the ordinary: the rpc Group is looking for an aviation general manager based in Sudan.
I don’t know. And I suspect that those who pretend they do[1], don’t know either.
I don’t think it will have escaped anybody’s notice (or at least anybody who would read this blog) that the ICC issued a warrant for Al-Bashir’s arrest. Nor will it have gone unnoticed that he retaliated swiftly by expelling at least 13 international aid organisations from Sudan. The discussion whether or not the warrant is A Good Thing is raging across a million, million blogs (well, a couple of hundreds at least), with most pro- and opponents presenting their viewpoints with astounding assuredness that they know what is Right[2].
To reiterate: I just don’t know. I am angry and sad, but that is angry with Al-Bashir and his cronies, and sad for the Sudanese population. But there is more to this.
At the last count, I have worked in over 30 countries. None of them is able to get at my emotions like Sudan does; and none save Sudan has made me decide that I never want to go back. Sudan is is blessed with a population that comprises some of the best, noblest, and nicest people I know. It has also produced some of the most callous, cruel, and abhorrent people I know. The strangest thing: the two groups overlap largely — and that is something that I have only experienced in Sudan. I don’t think that there are many countries where it is normal that the same colleague who risks his life trying to get a couple of very sick kids out of a incredibly tight spot, will tell you at some other occasion that he feels that all [fill in your favourite ethnic/cultural group] should be exterminated, and that he would not hesitate to pull the trigger if he had the chance. Yes, it happens occasionally in other countries as well, but as an everyday matter of course? Only in Sudan.
Sudan is one of the most complicated, intractable settings I know; and I find anybody who pretends that they know what is best for the Sudanese highly suspect.
(Photo courtesy of Ammar Abd Rabbo. Some rights reserved.)
Footnote
[1] In my original draft (which, I am glad to say, I let cool for a day or so before publishing), I had a couple of links to some of my co-bloggers here. But what’s the use? You know who you are.
[2] No, I haven’t suddenly contracted capitalitis; this is a result of the way this occasion seems to be celebrated with discussions that usually feature Ideas With Capitals.
[3] With apologies to Wronging Rights for the blatant plagiarism
