United Nations Aid Transfer Service by air, “More, Less Resources” in 22 countries

This is what Hidley Tah, director of foreign relations in the service known as “Onaas”, which is run by the World Food Program.

He added: “Where the roads are lacking, and there are no commercial options, the air transport service interferes for humanitarian assistance to ensure the continuity of human workers in contact with those who need them.“.

The UN official set an example in southern Sudan, where there are about 20,000 km of roads, but only 2% of them are packed, indicating that it is “Access to the needy is impossible without air transport.”.

Here comes the role of Onaas, who blocks this gap, and ensures that life -saving aid for people is not interrupted, as Tah emphasized.

Service 600 organizations

The UN official reminded that the Air Transport Service for Humanitarian Aid serves more than 600 organizations, which means providing a joint service instead of managing each of its unified air operations organization on its own, and it establishes the status of the World Food Program as a giant supply chain to serve the broader human community.

He added that the program transmits about two million metric tons of supplies annually, saying that this means “We are able to enable other organizations to focus more on their programmatic tasks while we manage the supply chain on their behalf, while ensuring efficiency gains.”.

The effect of decline in financing

From this logic, the head of external relations in the United Nations service for air transmission of humanitarian aid explained that it is necessary to emphasize the urgent need for political and financial support for this service, especially as they have made a promise not to neglect anyone.

He stated that Onaas lost about 50% of her financing compared to last year, adding: “We reduced the number of aircraft by 22%, and we have prepared negotiations on the contracts with our partners, lowered the pace of flights, and in some areas we completely stopped going to some destinations.”.

He pointed out that they reduced the costs by about 20%, which affects the air service response to the humanitarian needs.

But he stressed that the service continues its work, adding: “We work more with less resources to serve the human community in 21 countries.”.