The ASEAN Coordinating Centre for Humanitarian Assistance on disaster management (AHA Centre) and Deutsche Post DHL (DPDHL) Group, signed a Memorandum of Intent (MOI) recently to collaborate on emergency preparedness and disaster response.
As part of the MOI, DPDHL Group’s Disaster Response Team (DRT) will work on the ground together with Jakarta-based AHA Centre to facilitate the movement of international relief cargo during disaster response scenarios.
This includes unloading cargo planes, conducting professional warehousing and inventory management as well as loading the relief goods for onward transportation.
DRT will also provide expertise and support for AHA Centre’s courses and exercises related to ASEAN-ERAT (Emergency Response and Assessment Team) and ASEAN Humanitarian Logistics.
Adelina Kamal, Executive Director of the AHA Centre, said: “Public-private partnerships with industry experts like DPDHL Group are critical in scaling up the One ASEAN, One Response vision.
“As our partnership with the DRT team at Sulawesi last year demonstrated, their expertise in facilitating the flow of relief goods and supporting civil military relations is invaluable.”
DPDHL Group’s DRT was in Indonesia between October 4 and 26, 2018.
That deployment was one of its longest in the region to date, with 26 DHL volunteers facilitating the smooth processing and efficient flow of nearly 3,500 tonnes of relief goods.
DPDHL Group’s DRTs comprised specially trained volunteer employees from across the Group’s business units, including DHL Express, DHL Global Forwarding, DHL Supply Chain and DHL eCommerce Solutions.
The teams are located in the Americas, Middle East and Africa, Asia Pacific regions, covering approximately 80% of disaster-prone countries.
The MOI was signed at the launch of the ASEAN Philippines satellite warehouse in Camp Aguinaldo, Manila.
The new satellite warehouse in the Philippines is part of a network of warehouses in the region.
The main regional stockpile is located at Subang, Malaysia, within the compound of the United Nations Humanitarian Response Depot, a network of logistics hubs organized by the UN World Food Programme.
In addition to the regional stockpile in Subang, the satellite warehouse in Manila and Chainat, Thailand, form the Disaster Emergency Logistics System of ASEAN.
