What does it really take to deliver lifesaving aid in the middle of war zones, natural disasters, and humanitarian crises? In this episode of Logistics With Purpose®, Enrique Alvarez and Kristi Porter sit down with Noemi Pazienti and Kelly Bradley from the Logistics Cluster, the World Food Programme-led coordination platform supporting humanitarian operations across the globe.

From Lebanon and Gaza to Burkina Faso and Ukraine, this conversation takes listeners behind the scenes of humanitarian logistics operations happening in some of the world’s most complex and dangerous environments. Learn how the Logistics Cluster coordinates global partnerships, activates emergency supply chain networks, and works with NGOs, governments, and private sector leaders to ensure aid reaches the people who need it most.

Noemi and Kelly share firsthand stories from the field, including coordinating humanitarian convoys during active conflict, setting up emergency warehouse capacity in Beirut, navigating collapsed infrastructure in Gaza, and balancing operational efficiency with humanity and compassion.

You’ll also hear valuable leadership lessons on adaptability, collaboration, communication, resilience, and why details matter in supply chain operations where every decision can impact lives.

Whether you work in supply chain, logistics, humanitarian aid, or simply want a deeper understanding of how global relief efforts operate, this episode offers an inspiring and eye-opening look at logistics truly driven by purpose.

Additional Links & Resources:

• Learn more about the Logistics Cluster: https://logcluster.org/en
• Connect with Kelly: www.linkedin.com/in/kelly-bradley-6646a744
• Connect with Noemi: https://www.linkedin.com/in/noemi-pazienti/
• Learn more about Logistics with Purpose®: https://supplychainnow.com/program/logistics-with-purpose
• Learn more about Vector Global Logistics: https://vectorgl.com/
• Subscribe to Logistics with Purpose: https://logistics-with-purpose.captivate.fm/listen

This episode was hosted by Enrique Alvarez and Kristi Porter. For additional information, please visit our dedicated episode page: https://supplychainnow.com/itlays-logistics-cluster-delivering-aid-crisis-zones-world-food-programme-lwp156

Welcome to Logistics with Purpose presented by Vector Global Logistics in partnership with Supply Chain.

Now we spotlight and celebrate organizations who are dedicated to creating a positive impact.

Join us for this behind the scenes glimpse of the origin stories, change, making progress and future plans of organizations who are actively making a difference.

Our goal isn't just to entertain you, but to inspire you to go out and change the world. And now, here's today's episode of of Logistics With Purpose.

Good day, my name is Enrique Alvarez and welcome everyone to another very exciting episode of Logistics with Purpose.

We have amazing guests here today.

I'm the co founder and Managing Director at Vector Global Logistics and I really, really happy to be here with you.

Kristi, as always, how are you doing?

I'm good.

We have been looking forward to this interview for a while.

I feel like it's also special when we get to actually meet our guests in person.

The amazing thing about talking to people all over the world is talking to people all over the world, but when you actually get to meet them, it's a totally different experience.

So Noemi and I got to hang out a few months ago and I'm looking forward to learning more about Kelly and hearing his expertise as well.

But we are delighted to introduce the World Food Program, one of the most respected NGOs in the world.

I am Christy Porter, chief Impact Officer at Vector and delighted to bring this conversation for you today.

So without further ado, let me introduce Noemi Penzieti.

I hope I did not butcher that.

And Kelly Bradley.

Thank you, Kelly, for having me use your name on me.

They are both from the Logistics cluster, which is the platform led by the World Food Program that helps deliver life saving aid in some of the world's most complex environments.

So they're both here from Rome.

We're grateful for their time, for their ability to join us.

We've had to reschedule a couple of times because logistics and the world at large.

And so here we are and we're looking forward to a great conversation.

So Noemi is the project and Communications officer.

She brings a very strong background in humanitarian advocacy, UN operations and global communications.

And alongside her today is Kelly Bradley, the team lead for technical operations support, which with an extensive frontline experience responding to crises around the world, of which we have no shortage, and look forward to hearing more and more about their expertise.

So today we're going to talk about both their strategic and field experiences and what humanitarian logistics looks like today.

It is an ever evolving issue.

So we're delighted to have this conversation.

Absolutely.

And I'M very excited about having them as well.

It's always interesting to hear from the people that are really going into all those different parts of the world.

They're definitely making a positive impact.

And of course, I would love to hear them tell us a little more about this story.

So, Noemi and Kelly, welcome.

Welcome to the show.

How are you doing today?

Thank you very much, Enrique and Kristi, it's very nice to be here.

And thank you for hosting us in your podcast today.

We're very good, considering the situation around the world.

We're busy, but we're good.

So it is, it is challenging, right?

And we've had like a couple of challenging few years, I would say, around the world when it comes to natural disasters and human and other crises that we're facing.

But it's always good to have companies and organizations like yours.

Kelly, how are you doing today?

Good.

As you said, it has been a chaotic few years and it even has been a chaotic few months.

I think we're all just here in Rome, happy to just be in town and looking forward to summer.

So thanks for having us here.

Thank you for joining.

Absolutely.

Well, let's start a little bit, I guess, first some background on the logistics cluster.

Huge honor.

And just even being appointed by the UN to lead this response already says a lot about you and your capability.

So we talked about the last couple of years, which have been, I feel like, you know, since the pandemic, we've certainly seen a different just climate in the world.

But the last two decades since, you know, 25 now entering the 26th year of the logistics cluster, you're operating in places like Gaza, Lebanon, Crane, Burkina, fasa.

Is there one moment or story or maybe even a statistic that really captures the power and capabilities of the cluster model?

Noemi, I'll start with you and then, Kelly, I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Thank you, Cristina.

So 20 years ago.

We actually marked our anniversary and first activation for the Pakistan earthquake last year.

So now we're over 20 years.

And since then we have grown into this very diverse humanitarian logistics community of partners.

So we really, through the cluster, we really bring together a broad range of partners, including private sector, academia, international and national NGOs, donors, and they all bring to the Cluster these very diverse expertise and operational capacity.

That's really helping us in this very difficult context that you were just mentioning before.

As you mentioned, today we're working very challenging contexts where no single organization can deliver alone.

This is why the logistic cluster and this coordination mechanism is very relevant in this specific context, including as you mentioned, Gaza, Sudan, we're active in Lebanon, in Ukraine, and in total around another 14 logistics operations were currently activated.

But what still impressed me is really the power of this partnership.

I think this is our strength.

We provide them with logistics support, operational support, and my colleague Kelly can also give you more details about how we operate together in this context in specific crisis, including shared transport and storage.

But also we provide support in terms of emergency preparedness activities.

So we work together with local and national actors.

In fact, now we have more than 47% of our partners who are actually national and local counterparts.

And also we provide trainings and capacity building across these countries and environmental sustainability guidance that we also keep in mind during the emergency response, having in mind the future of our planet as well.

So I think this is.

These numbers are really relevant, I think, and really struck me because it really gives you an idea of what we have been building together over these 20 years and the power of the community that we're building to overcome all the logistic barriers in these emergency responses together.

Wow.

There's a lot of moving parts as you mentioned.

Right.

And we'll dive right into them and we'll get a little more specific into the operations.

I'm sure our audience being primarily supply chain driven, I would really like to better understand how you guys do what you do, because it's not only the partners, but it's quite amazing that you reach so far places in such an efficient way.

But before that, Kelly, maybe you can tell us a little bit more, what is the actual mandate of this logistics cluster and how does that kind of difference from say any other logistics company around the world, like a freight forwarding company or something?

What are the single organizational logistics kind of fundamentals from.

From what you do, and including the role of the World Food Program?

Yeah, I think it's important that you use the word mandate there because we offer essentially what are considered mandated services.

But we also have other categories under the mandate as well too.

As Christy had pointed out, the interagency Standing Committee went back over 20 years.

Now we sort of established certain parameters of what we do.

I guess the three top level would be considered coordination services, information management services, and when and where required, is the service provider of last resort.

I should say that I'm the most conversant in that third category because that's my technical area of support, whereas some other units might be doing some other things.

What this essentially comes down to is, is that when there's an emergency of sufficient size, the logistics cluster is activated and there's a whole series of steps that you have to go through to get there.

I'm not going to explain all of them here, but when we are in fact activated and operating at the behest of national authorities and host governments, we are essentially meant to fill gaps through a variety of mechanisms.

So that means that if we understand that there is a prescient gap, transportation and storage, customs and importation obliged to provide that as a service to the community in one format or another.

Again, this can get a little bit sort of technical and complicated.

And so I don't want to weigh it down.

But for example, if we go into a situation and we realize there's an existent commercial sector, we.

It's not our job to replace the commercial sector.

We don't want to put locals out of business.

In fact, we may even be hiring them to help us support in one way or another.

But what we're really doing here is trying to find out where we can plug in and help in that way.

If there is a problem with customs and importation, we can help organize that through meetings.

We can actually share guidance, documents.

If there is a gap in storage in a remote location, we can establish that storage.

It goes much further beyond that.

And unfortunately, I think Noemi has more information than I do on those points, so I would hand over to her.

No, that's.

Thank you.

Thank you so, so much.

I had a question for you, Kelly, before we move on to Noemi.

And of course, Noemi, if you can tell us a little bit more about this mandate.

So you mentioned it gets activated, is it all reporting up to the UN Council?

I mean, who activates a new, I guess, project for you and your team?

Hyper specific question, and I don't want to bore your audience to death, but in a situation in which there is an emergency, there is something in a country, a prior existing infrastructure of UN agencies that can make a determination that, hey, we are now in uncharted territory, or now we are in a period of unprecedented need, they collectively have to choose to request the activation.

Wfp, as the lead agency has to basically say, hey, we're here and we can do this thing.

And ultimately, there has to be a letter that's issued to a much higher authority in Geneva.

Again, there's plenty of information online if you want to.

Very, very political.

Right.

I mean, you have to follow the right.

Well, it's.

It's delicate.

Right.

I mean, you want.

You want to do everything with the right kind of processes to make sure that you are very political and to make sure that you do actually end up helping people as opposed to pissing them off like some.

Absolutely.

We are a neutral organization.

We are not meant to make anyone angry.

But also, when we're activated, we actually have certain obligations as well, too, and we can talk about that a little bit later on.

But we have to report we have to provide services in a certain way.

We're not allowed to say no.

And that's sort of the power and the strength of where we are.

Thank you.

Noemi, do you want to add something to that regarding the very general.

For.

As we get into the details on.

The operations, how does the cluster differ.

From a single organization's logistics operate?

I think, as Kali was mentioning, our mandate is very simple and difficult to explain at the same time, because basically what we're doing is really to ensure that logistics does not become a barrier to humanitarian assistance.

We keep basically humanitarian assistant moving by coordinating the services that Kelly was mentioning.

The common storage for humanitarian cargo, the transport, the interagency transports.

This is what makes the difference.

Humanitarian coordination mechanism.

We are not a single humanitarian organization delivering aid, meaning that when the cluster is activated, we are really a platform that enables the other humanitarian actors involved in the response to actually make sure that the response is actually implemented now in a more efficient, timely, and costly manner.

And as you mentioned, in terms of, you know, it's accountability, as Christy was mentioning also before, we have the workflow program is the United nations lead agency, meaning that really has the role to making the system accountable and providing logistics support as last resort.

So the goal is not to replace, as Kelly was mentioning now, the existing logistics providers or compete with the commercial sector, but provide alternative emergency solution where no other organization are able or willing to provide it in a specific context.

Fabulous.

Well, when I hear activated, I think more of the bat signal.

So now I know it's the letter Red Phone.

That's.

Or Red phone straight to Kelly.

Yeah.

So it's a very official letter.

Yes.

Amazing.

Well, let's look at a couple of your projects and initiatives more closely.

I'd love to start with Burkina Faso, which doesn't get a lot of.

At least Here in the US A lot of airtime on, on the news, but there's always something going on there as well.

And then for that initiative, you started leaning on the private sector to deliver support when the humanitarian aid didn't have the means to reach such remote areas on its own.

Definitely.

I feel like those kinds of partnerships, I'm hearing more and more at humanitarian aid in conversations and conferences, wanting to hear more of those happening, wanting to see more of that as a future of humanitarian logistics.

But clearly you're again leading the way on this.

So can you tell us a little bit more about how that came together and what the private sector brought to.

The table as we were mentioning?

I mean, as logistic cluster, we're really a diverse group of partners.

So the private sector is very important.

It's key for our work.

The partnership that we have initiated with different companies over the year, what we're trying to do as logistic cluster is really work with the private sector to bridge the gap between those who have resources and those who lack the most.

And the logistics emergency team members are 4 Global Logistics Leader.

Some of them are very well known.

So it's agility ups, Maersk and DP World.

And through this partnership, we are really making sure that partners during the emergency response can really access the asset and the expertise that the private sector can bring to the humanitarian responses.

So what we are doing, we are basically, as I was saying at the beginning, bridging a gap and making sure that the humanitarian community can easily communicate and talk and access to these resources that the private sector have.

And as you mentioned, Christy, there are some concrete example we can bring in terms of the impact and the support that the CREDAC sector is bringing to the table to the humanitarian response through this partnership.

Both the logistics emergency teams step in in order to provide safe storage for partners during the response.

And also the Airbus foundation in Mozambique provided supported with 65 rotation of helicopter.

So basically thanks to that, they really help loading over 39 kilo of humanitarian aid and supporting in terms of reach and impact, 5,000 families.

So these really supported remote areas that were also not accessible, for example, in the case of Burkina Faso, for over six months, really reopening schools, the canteen of the schools and also health centers in these remote areas.

So together, for example, in Burkina Faso, we managed to help and 80% of them were national and local.

So very close to the communities we have reached.

This is really, I think for us the power that you were mentioning before of this public private sector collaboration in humanitarian logistics.

Because as I was saying, we really make sure that these assets are really available for the entire humanitarian community.

And then, Kelly, from your perspective and for our commercial supply chain professionals listening, in what does a meaningful partnership with the humanitarian say, sector look like in action?

How do you always ensure that everybody is getting exactly what they need and want?

Sometimes companies want to offer something that may actually not be a need at the time.

And so that's also a bit of a delicate dance.

But what are those strongest partnerships look like and how, how should partnerships approach it?

I think you actually said it perfectly well.

It's identifying what is required.

So Noemi mentioned we have the L, E T, but there are actually other commercial entities that we have varying degrees of relationships with.

Some are squarely focused on supporting logistics cluster and logistics cluster partners.

Others are actually for WFP writ large that we can tap into.

The important part is that when we call forward these services, we have to have a clear idea of what we're going to do and what we need and then how that agency can support us in one format or another, whether it be air delivery or establishing a storage location.

You are very correct when you said that somebody might want to offer something, they have unused stowage space on the back of an aircraft going somewhere, they might have storage locations.

And we say, okay, but this isn't a part of the country that there's already commercial operations that we don't necessarily want to take away that business from other people.

Are you willing to operate in a location that might be potentially insecure or that is completely unprofitable or something?

And essentially how we have come to this relationship with these partners is they are very good at understanding that relationship.

They're very good at extending themselves where they can.

And when they can't provide it, they simply say no.

But what they're not doing is they're not just trying to force what's available.

Rather, they're actually very good at adapting to us.

And it took a lot of back and forth between us, but it's actually been phenomenal.

I mean, it's amazing and it sounds very straightforward right when it comes to the way you're explaining it.

But it's hard.

It's hard to do this at our world stage.

And of course, striking These partnerships and really reacting in time.

It's kind of what's on going really needed.

And so you guys do a very, very good job on that.

But, Kelly, I kind of heard you say trust, communication, being open, really listening.

I mean, it's building this trustworthy relationships with people.

Is it part of that?

Is it a big important part of your job building this relationship?

I mean, if I'm honest, an important part of my job is ensuring the machinery moves smoothly.

That being said, yeah, we have a lot of overlap with these commercial entities all the time.

Very frequently.

I mean, it's.

They're companies that we traditionally have regular contractual relationships with, but under certain situations, they're willing to offer free services.

Again, it just depends on the nature of the emergency and the relationship with that partner.

We have to be able to live up to what we have said we're going to do.

We cannot have, you know, you know, junk showing up at a warehouse or things being packaged poorly.

But at the same time, we rely on them to say, hey, this is not a perfect scenario.

There is going to be chaos.

Things are not going to make sense.

And so we need you to be adaptable to us and honestly working with ground operators, people who run the facilities, people who maybe, you know, regional managers, Those are the ones that really get it, and those are the ones that I have been able to develop the best relationship with.

But we have communication at every stage of management in this organization.

Makes sense.

And I'll start with you, Kelly, this time, but you were leading the operations.

You were setting up a new warehouse capacity in Beirut, and you were coordinating interagency convoys into active conflict areas for most of us that really don't have a clue of what all that really, really means when it comes to the experience that it entails.

Could you try to take us inside kind of those first weeks inside of Beirut and what we're doing, what you are seeing, how do you feel and live through those initial steps in such a horrible crisis?

Well, one, I don't know if we can talk about how we feel and live.

I mean, it is actually a problem for the people who are living there now.

So I think it's safe to say that we're committing ourselves to support them first before concerned about, I guess, our feeling on this.

But I would say this Lebanon is a good example, and it's sort of the new normal that we're encountering.

It's a country with very high capacity in many Ways.

There was already a prior existing commercial infrastructure that was very robust.

There was also a very good national coordination mechanism between the municipalities and the federal government.

They actually had a lot of disaster response capacity on their own.

So when we show up, what we typically do in almost every situation is that we launch a survey, we talk to the community, we figure out what.

What is happening.

Is there a problem?

Do you need us to support in one way that you're not able to solve yourself?

So in this specific instance, a lot of partners, a lot of humanitarian organizations were already there way in advance.

They already had pipelines established for procurement.

But the problem was, is that they could no longer reach some of the inaccessible locations.

Predominantly in the south, south of the Latonya river, but not exclusively.

In addition to that, you know, they had had very streamlined sort of operations where they could just procure something and go right to the point of distribution.

They didn't really have a holding mechanism or decoupling mech mechanism in between.

So suddenly there's an emergency, their pipeline breaks.

They have no place to put anything.

The way that I generally refer to us to people who are not really familiar is that we're the equivalent of, I guess, a humanitarian dhl insofar as stuff comes to us, you know, we convey a parcel for somebody else, and then we ultimately return it back to the owner.

We could be doing advanced things like, you know, kidding and palletization, but we don't always.

And sometimes we don't always have the most information.

We just know, oh, there's an emergency.

Here's my stuff.

Take it.

So we have to make a calculated decision of how we're going to do it, how we're going to get it to where needs to be.

In the case of Lebanon.

So wfp, it's actually not a nonprofit.

It's an intergovernmental organization by definition, because it is part.

It's an organ of the United Nations.

We have really good, you know, standing.

We have the ability to communicate with both sides to the party of the conflict.

We can deal with national authorities and local authorities incredibly well.

And we are neutral and we're trusted because of that.

So in this specific scenario one, we were able to identify a commercial warehouse, relatively modest capacity.

It was up to 2,000 pilot positions that we could immediately say, hey, humanitarian community, if you have no place to put your stuff, just bring it into our possession and we'll hold onto it for the time being.

That was actually through the commercial partnerships, and it was phenomenal.

We had it in, like, four Days all we had to do was pick up the phone and call and say, who's willing to donate this to us?

And sure enough, we had it in our possession.

But the big thing and the huge value added that the logistics cluster could do is that we could use our sort of United nations status and our neutrality to negotiate what's called a deconflicted convoy to the south.

Meaning that we can radiohead to everyone and say, our vehicles are going in this direction on this day.

We're going to be there.

You know, just be aware that, you know, we would like to have safe passage.

And believe it or not, I mean, it takes some back and forth and they have to coordinate amongst each other, but they will actually tell us exactly here's the route that you're going to take and here's the timeframe in which you can offload safely.

And that gives us, I guess, a leg up, an advantage in a way that other parties that cannot, even large traditional organizations that would normally operate there didn't necessarily have that sort of access.

And so that's the good stuff.

Great.

We awesome.

We, we get these, these vehicles, we load them, we put WFP and UN logos on the outside so everyone's aware of what's going on.

But that's sort of where the complexity comes in.

We had extremely tight windows.

Oftentimes we had two hours or less to offload what would be up to 20 vehicles.

Usually the delivery locations were heavily impacted, sometimes with rubble, sometimes there was bombs falling around.

So we would have to like literally scope them with satellite imagery.

We'd have to find somebody locally and have them walk around with a phone and say, is this know what is clearing?

Where can we put the trucks?

We had to run with our own mhe the handling equipment.

So we actually had to have forklifts in tow behind us that could actually offload the vehicles in real time as we went.

And we had very, very tight deadlines.

We were able to move safely, but there would be eventually some point that they would say after, you know, 2pm there's no guaranteed safety.

And so if you're not done, you have to just drop and get out of there as fast as possible.

Luckily, in that time we didn't really have any major incidents.

And luckily we were actually able to hit most of our targets.

It's not a good expression, not targets.

We were able to administer our time windows in a way that was appropriate, but it was also extremely complex.

Little things like partners delivering pallets.

Well, is the pallet properly braced?

Is it Wrapped if it falls apart when it's in transit, it's slumping in the truck.

Suddenly it has to be offloaded by hand.

Guess what, you just added 15 minutes to the offloading process.

Right.

So really having to educate them on how to deliver things to the warehouse, really educating the warehouse to say like this has to be triple wrapped.

It cannot go beyond certain dimensions.

Having to prep the forklift drivers once we got there sort of thinking out how the game plan is going to work.

It ended up being significant amount of work for ultimately, I'm not going to say it was a small amount of output, it was still very large.

But like just the amount of attention to detail you had to pay versus if you just paid a company and said hey drop it off at my warehouse, nobody would think twice about it.

So it was kind of going through every step of the process.

No, it's I mean it sounds dangerous too, right?

So on top of everything that you're describing and how logistically is working and so I wanted to just get your reaction on it.

Noemi and you were there as well.

There is a big component that you probably are being too humble to mention, but you're people are risking their lives to help each other.

It sounds like you're going through rubble and bumps are falling and how do you why what drives you guys to be so amazing and what, what, what why are you doing what you're doing?

And I'm guessing what else can you share from that kind of Lebanon experience with our audience?

Noemi I think we're just professionals.

For us it's really want to think about ourself as professionals of humanitarian sectors.

We don't really feel special.

I think people who we are serving and other organization are also responding to this crisis are special because I think you need a lot of strength when you find yourself in this difficult situation.

As you mentioned, I mean and also Carolina was kind of explaining all the technical aspects behind the response.

So we really need to make sure that we follow standards.

We're professional, we reduce the risk, we use the resources properly in order to really make the response more efficient for the people we serve.

It's really also the importance now in our mandate to make sure that when there are these onset emergencies and there is a lot of chaos around.

As Kelly was mentioning, there were already many organizations working in country with a lot of experience about the country and the resources that were available was really important and critical to bring all these people around the table and make sure that we were not duplicating efforts, we were not coming into the country to increase the confusion and the chaos.

But you really need to make sure that you start mapping, as Kelly was mentioning, what are the routes where we can go, who is already there, who is doing what, what are the resources available and starting the plan from there.

So this is really how we started the setup.

And all the operational information management at the beginning is really key in our mandate and all the coordination meetings that are also very important to start mapping out who is part of the response, who has the capacity and how we can also mutualize these resources in terms of efficiency.

So I think it went very fast.

I think the first weeks are very fast during a response.

So what you mentioned and what you both described is like a setup where you need to coordinate with a lot of different partners and a lot of different organizations that may or may not have been there already before you.

It's everyone, I'm guessing, under the same mentality, same mindset, everyone's really trying to openly talk to each other, collaborate.

I mean, it must be a very, very good team effort.

And all the organizations and partners and people trying to do this must be very well aligned in trying to achieve and accomplish the goal.

Right.

Does it feel that way?

Does it feel like we're all in this together?

Everyone's so open, everyone's helpful, everyone's trying to proactively support each other.

I think this is a very key aspect, especially for the response in Lebanon, where actually a logistics working group was already in place.

And this for us really makes the difference when we are activated, as you mentioned, if there is already at country level based, a working group in place or a coordination mechanism at national level already in place, it's very helpful.

We really saw the difference because you already have many information available that you don't have if there was not a national coordination mechanism in place.

So it's very important now for the scale up of the response at the beginning to make sure that you, as you mentioned now you kind of capitalize on what is already in country and the actual coordination mechanism.

So Lebanon, for that was a very great example of how we.

The setup was very.

Was faster compared to other responses because of the logistic working loop.

Fantastic.

The collaboration, I feel like, is another topic that has come up a lot in conversations.

And of course that is a prime example.

We've talked about some Difficult areas, including logistics.

Cluster has also worked in Gaza, Egypt, Cyprus, Jordan.

We just talked about Lebanon, Burkina Faso.

So in areas where they may, there may be an ongoing disaster or still very soon aftermath could be war, could be rubble, bombs, everything that we just discussed.

Do you have to redefine and what success may look like?

Do you have often plans going in that have to be pivoted and adjusted and they don't look exactly like they did before and so success looks different.

Will you tell us either one of you about your perspective on just the goals and how to define success or how you take that approach?

Yeah, I can.

The success specifically I think has to be measured as a yardstick against what the goal is.

And I think this is going to come up probably over and over again in the conversation, conversations we're going to have that every context is very different and sometimes you think you go in with a plan and then something else is just going to be completely changed along the way.

The example that I sort of was going to give was that of Palestine.

And if I were to measure success there, I would say, okay, it's fundamentally what is the most amount of goods that gets into the hands of people who needs it it.

And I think that commercially and in even like the NGO sector between donors, sometimes we become obsessed with KPIs or metrics.

We like this information on our supply chain.

But if you look at a situation like Palestine, there was essentially a de facto communications collapse.

That early stage we had once the conflict really ramped up anyways, we basically had no idea what was going on.

We couldn't really get proper demand signals.

And mind you logistics cluster, we don't run our own cargo.

We are supporting the community.

So we just know, talking to everyone else that they didn't know necessarily what was going on.

And even at that point, the only point of border crossing was into Rafah on the Gaza side was actually coming from Egypt and it was the only one that was open for the humanitarian corridor.

And I think I remember us calculating just based on, you know, reviewing the way bills that it took an estimated 21 days for things to get from Al Arish in Egypt to the rafah border crossing.

21 Days, that is 40 kilometers or 25 miles for our US audience.

And that's because there was such a huge backlog of trucks that nobody like it was impossible to actually everything get in there was scanning, there was crossloading, there was actually the unavailability of trucks inside of Palestine to move them onwards.

In addition to that, the partners they didn't know like what would leave first, wouldn't necessarily arrive first, it could arrive third.

As things were being cross loaded, the the chassis didn't match.

We'd go from a large truck to a medium sized one.

And so cargo was getting intermixed.

Our partners just literally couldn't necessarily anticipate what was going on.

So in that specific scenario, that was the first time we actually rolled out a Q code labeling thing where we partners could actually pre register their cargo with us and then we could just put a label and put it right on the side of the pallet.

And then once we crossed over, and I was with the initial team and there was a few of us, went and identified storage locations inside of the Gaza Strip.

We actually hired people to pretty much man the border.

And then we also were working with local companies internally so that when those trucks would show up, even without Internet whatsoever, you could visually see this belongs to that partner with the phone.

You could actually scan it and we could get a little bit more information.

We would have phone numbers, we would have emails and that we could actually contact that individual and say, what do you want us to do with this?

You want us to leave it here and you come get it?

We can deliver it to your location, we can put it in storage.

And that was really extremely complex.

In the early days we were having to do everything with pen and paper plus a QR code.

But everything fundamentally returned to an offline process in a way that we didn't think that we would ever have to do again.

That's incredible.

Yeah, really, thank you for explaining that process.

These are long days, they're difficult days.

I'm curious also what helps you get through just especially when you're on the ground and I would assume to a certain extent even just working remotely from your offices and things.

But in those situations, what are some of the things that get you through personally?

Just those difficult situations, I think for.

Me in my case is to see that the impact that we can make if we move forward.

You know, we know it's difficult when you choose this job.

It's always, as we say, not initial setup, the initial, the onset, emergency.

It's really working around the clock.

But you know that the final objective is really to help the humanitarian community, to enable the humanitarian community to save lives at the end, to really bring cargo where it's needed.

So I think this is really what keep the motivation high in terms of extra working hour and you really don't feel them.

I mean, you feel them, but it's also, it's not your priority to feel them.

So I think this, at least for me on a more professional level, it's something that I see also working with many different teams, especially the teams based in the country where the sudden onset emergencies happening are really the one affected to really help them and make sure that even when we work remotely from HQ at the beginning before the deployment, we can really ease a bit their workload.

I think we all make sure that we do our best from our different capacities and technical expertise to ensure that the process goes smoothly as soon, as much as we can.

Yeah.

What about you, Kelly?

I once heard someone say in an emergency like that, when you show up, that may very well be the worst day of that person's life.

And so I just like to think that always remind myself that there's someone, another human at the end of that supply chain.

And no matter how stressed out you are or how inconvenienced you are, are, I can still get on a plane and go home at some point, I can still see my family, I can still return to a normal life when this might just be the future for whomever it is that we're attempting to serve.

So those long days, I mean, yeah, you just think to yourself, you probably should keep going.

Now, I'm going to caveat this by saying that nobody is a superhero and that people do get burned out and people need to know when it's time to pack it in.

But when you're there, you can put on a professional face and just hope that you can do the best.

Thank you.

Thank you both for what you do.

I just want to be very straightforward and clear and open about this.

You're amazing and maybe you don't feel like superheroes and that's probably the superhero posture to have.

But no, I'm pretty sure that all over the world, you and your teams and all the other organizations and people that are truly going into those conflict areas and those natural disasters early on and trying to help, they're pretty inspiring.

So thank you so much for what you do.

I'm sure our audience is delighted with this conversation and I just want to make sure that you know that you are an inspiration for most of us.

You've, you've 20 years is what you said for the logistics cluster.

And you've gone in through all this complex and critical regions and I'm sure you've seen very, very unique environments.

You have experienced very, very unique things.

In each one of these different regions of the world, what is the one thing or the lesson that, that you have learned the hard way?

One thing that is common in all these different circumstances that you have learned kind of the hard way?

Well, I think the commonality is that there is no commonality, if I can just reply to that, is that there's no such thing as a way of.

Going around the, the question a little bit.

No, I, I think it's actually a direct response.

There is no such thing as a single one size fits all solution.

And if you approach the problem on autopilot, you're bound to fail.

So what have you learned the hard way?

After all these different unique situations, what is one of the things you're like, yeah, this is something I.

Details matter, which I was going to say, I drive my team saying that in that when you walk into a situation, you have to really approach it with eyes open.

The examples I always give is that you can have something like Ukraine, where it's like basically right on the EU's doorstep.

It's a high commercial infrastructure inside of the country.

So just going and you know, finding someone to provide the service for you, it's actually quite easy.

But being in the eu, you also run into complexity, high regulatory environments.

Partners were trying to transit in pharmaceuticals into Ukraine or you know, ballistics rated dual use items or something.

And that is highly restricted inside of EU territory.

So you can get a warehouse, but the warehouse can't necessarily do the thing that you want to do for cross border activities.

Contrast that with say the Ebola response when you show up and like we're expected to essentially clear cut parts of the jungle and build warehouse infrastructure out of mobile tents because there is literally nothing.

And then you're also confronted with these like really complicated medical equipment and devices that you don't normally deal with, like Tyvek and Tychem, or these like reagent chemicals and things that humanitarians typically don't do.

If you don't ask the right questions, if you don't pay attention and you just assume that you know what's going on, you're gonna have that problem.

I sometimes joke about it saying it's second mission syndrome because you go through one emergency and you figure things out and then you say, ah, got it.

Next time I go to an emergency, we'll just do it the same way.

And then you just get knocked on your butt because everything is completely new.

Wow.

Well, those are incredibly practical things and I appreciate that you actually brought them up.

And for Everyone listening.

And just to summarize them, I heard you say, details matter.

Pay attention, Pay attention, and do not assume anything.

This is very critical for logistics, and I'm sure it is even more so for what the type of logistics that you guys perform.

Noemi.

Anything that you have learned the hard way.

I think many things because as Kelly was mentioning, you know, when you're exposed to so many different contexts with different stories, different people, different team members, I think it's true.

I mean, adaptability, flexibility, it's really something you have to learn, and you learn it at the beginning on the hard way.

No, it's really like you arrive to a second or third deployment thinking that now you're kind of used to what to expect and.

No, absolutely not.

This is something you have to.

To every time learn again from scratch with the people around you, with the context surrounding you, and really make sure that you get the right needs and the right response for whatever is happening.

I also want to talk about.

No, I mean, I can't let us go without talking about the time we spent together in Rome.

I loved my afternoon with you.

Well, it started out as morning coffee, then it turned into lunch, and then a little later after lunch.

And so we had a great time chatting and getting to know each other and.

And so I appreciate all the time you spend with me.

And of course, we talked a lot about marketing and communications, both having a background in that.

I loved some of the practical takeaways that you talked about when we were together, and I'd love for our audience to hear those.

The difficulty, I think, of situations like these is you have such a breadth of stakeholders, as we discussed.

You have reporting mechanisms, you have people who may be paying or donating services.

You have your logistics partners, your humanitarian partners.

There's a lot of people who have.

Have a lot at stake and a lot of people who want to know what's going on.

So I'd love for you to share a little bit more about that, what you do for your different audiences and how you approach them.

Thank you, Christy.

It was also my pleasure to meet you, by the way, in Rome.

Was very fun and nice to have you here and have the chance to meet you in person.

No, absolutely.

I think I want to start here now with also what we discussed in terms of a bit of misconception when we talk about our sector.

I think this is very important now.

When you manage communication with donors, with our partners, it's very important to make our message clear, to really make sure that the audience is.

Because it can be very technical as we know.

So make sure that it's actually we ensure that we elaborate all the data, all the complexities, all the technical aspects in an easy wording, an easy narrative that can be accessible to all our audience.

Because at the end what we want is really to communicate the impact that we have.

Because I think Enrique, you also mentioned at the beginning not something related, more about accountability, what you guys are doing in terms of transparency, reporting.

I think this is a very important aspect of our work.

And so of course it needs to be reflected also in our communication in different channels now from social media to, to official communication to operational information sharing.

So of course we have a very different range of products that we have to produce both in countries and at global level.

So we really need to as we discuss in Rome, not to meet to match the audience in order to really make sure that the message arrive very, very clear for what concern humanitarian logistics.

What I can say is that one misconception that we have been working around it and try to really to clarify is that logistics is not, you know, about transport, you know, trucks or storage warehouses is really the backbone of every emergencies.

So basically with the logistic assistance can flows also across border.

Without it, life saving assistance might not reach people in need.

So this is very a very important message and a critical message for people to understand that logistics is really behind every emergency response.

It might sounds a bit technical, but this is actually really what's keep the aid moving.

So I think at the end of the day is really to make the different audience as you mentioned Christy, with different products.

And I think in Rome we had more time to also go into the different products for the website, the information you can make and social media.

The new also no type of formats that now with social media we can also use in terms of live interviews.

Now with your podcast is also way not to go a bit inside these very technical aspects of humanitarian response.

So I think there are very different possibilities.

But I think one of the important thing is also to focus on the complementarity.

I think was Enrique, you were asking us what's the difference between the cluster and one single organization delivering aid.

I think it's very important also in terms of communication to highlight the difference is complementarity.

We are working, everyone is working this very complex and Internet interconnected humanitarian environment.

So I think for each organization and for us as well, it's important to be clear on what's our added value for partners, for donors, for the different audience.

So what make make us basically unique where the expertise lies and how we can work, work with others to avoid duplication of efforts.

Not at the end.

So make the system more efficient.

Absolutely.

Well, we talked a lot about the logistics cluster.

We talked about some of the different activations and projects that you have worked on.

But I'm pretty sure our audience would love to get to know you guys a little bit better and a little bit more personally.

So before we go, Noemi, I would love to talk a little bit more with you about your personal life.

And then, of course, course, Christy will do the same with Kelly.

You started with internships at the International Criminal Court in Le Hag and the UN Sub Saharan African office in New York.

Then you went on to work for the United nations in Haiti as a strategic analyst and gender affairs officer.

Then UNICEF in Niger, Save the Children Italy, and now, of course, you're at the logistics cluster in Rome.

Where does this passion for humanitarian work come from?

Tell us a little bit more about you.

Wow.

Thanks for reminding me of this experience.

Well, I'm sure a lot of people out there are listening to this and wanting to, wanting to learn how, how can they do something similar if they need to?

Absolutely.

And I'm, I'm always, I'm always willing to support young people who wants to enter in the sector because I know that at the beginning it's, it seems very far away, very complex and very difficult.

I always want to keep my door open to everyone, as you mentioned, is interested into this sector.

I think for me was always the curiosity to see how lives work around the world, like in different countries, maybe because I'm half French and half Italian, so I was always a bit in the middle.

So I was always curious to learn even more about other countries and other people.

So I think that the traveling side is also part of our work work.

And I think when you start traveling, you also start understanding that, no, there are issues everywhere that you can maybe really support communities wherever you go with different projects.

It doesn't have to be at.

I mean, you can choose at which level can be a community level.

You can have a lot of impact in whatever organization you work with.

I had the opportunity to work with many different organizations from international NGOs with the United nations system also, so with the private sector.

And I think that it's very important to also understand different approaches and make sure not that you learn a bit from every organization and you can, you know, bring it added value.

What I was mentioning also before, the complementarity, the adaptability, I think it's very Important in.

In our work.

Thank you.

I just had two questions for you that kind of follow up.

The first one is do you have any particular story that you remember when you were younger that kind of helped you shape this mindset of exploring the world and then helping each other and going around?

Is there something that kind of drove you to do what you ended up doing?

Is there someone that maybe a mentor or a teacher that kind of helped you shape the person that you are now?

My first deployment was in Laos with an ngo.

And I think really there I got.

I understood that that was the type of work I wanted to do.

So really working with the community at the time was a food security project for women in remote areas in Laos.

And I learned a lot from organization, from the communities, from the team.

And, and I think for me that was the.

I think not for the experience that made it.

Exactly.

Thank you so much for, for sharing this.

Personal stories.

For people that want to do something similar, is there one piece of advice that you can give them, One call of action?

What should they be thinking of?

What should they be trying?

What should they do?

From my side, I would say that curiosity is very important.

I think if you have the curiosity to really understand what you're reading, what's happening, to reach out to connect with people to the organization or working in a specific context or response, I think this is always helping you understanding what's the right path for you, what's the right organization, because we also have very different mandates.

So also understand where you can bring your added value as a professional.

Curiosity can take you a long way.

Kelly, what about you?

We've talked about, you've been on the ground and helping in situations from Ebola, response to Liberia, Ukraine, Gaza, Turkey earthquake.

And you're currently leading all the systems behind those complex operations.

So I guess first question is, how did you find your way into this work?

Actually, the first job I ever had outside of the week and a half, I worked in a bagel store and could not stand getting up at 4am to go open the shop.

I actually was loading shelves in a distribution center in my hometown and by the time I was 18, I was driving a forklift and offloading trucks.

And I kind of maintained that job even through university.

I thought I had a very different vision because I mean, nobody, nobody knows about this type of thing where I'm from.

I'm from a little tiny corner of the United States.

I actually had a degree in anthropology and conflict studies.

And when I graduated university, I was working for a domestic Violence center that was funded by the state of California that did some community disaster relief efforts and they did homeless support.

And I think that's when it just kind of clicked where I said, wait a minute, I have all these practical skills that it can be applied in a way that's relatively meaningful.

And so I started interning and volunteering and I went back to school and I got a master's degree in humanitarian operations management.

And I just kind of have continued to advance from there.

Now when I think about it, I've been doing humanitarian logistics for 18 years.

And of those 18 years, 13 of which are involved in the rapid emergency sides, which.

It's been a wild ride and I wouldn't trade it for anything.

But it's definitely has taken me more than, I think 50 or 60 countries by this point.

I've had to work in, in part or another.

Things are slowing down now.

But before it was like you didn't know what, what country you were going to go to sleep in that day.

If you were on the roster because something would happen, then you would just get the call and you'd be out the door.

Which brings me to my second question.

That's an excellent lead in for it.

What have you learned in the work that you've done?

What I think is just perspective and perseverance.

You have to realize sometimes when you're walking into these situations, you are just a little tiny part of a huge thing that's happening around you.

Sometimes it's just a gigantic disaster of global proportions that you won't even really realize until years later looking back.

So one, just know that you're there to help, but you're not going to fix everything.

And also you may not be helping at all.

You might actually be part of the problem.

So try to find out where you can plug in.

And then secondly, I think it's what I was getting at before is, is that, you know, sometimes you may feel completely overwhelmed, but just imagine how that other person feels.

So you can continue for as long as.

As you can, and then you can pack it up and go home.

And that's a super advantage that we have that a lot of other people don't.

So do what you can, when you can, where you can do it.

Thank you.

I love it.

Yeah.

Thank you both.

As we wrap up, I would like to ask you what does the phrase logistics with purpose mean to you?

And I'll start with you, Kelly, and then to you, Noemi.

Logistics with purpose.

Ultimately, it's that knowing that what I am doing is going to have at least a net outcome that is positive and trying to maximize what I'm doing with logistics as a tool.

I mean, I'm a logistician.

I love supply chain and logistics.

In fact, I'm a huge nerd.

People who know me know that sometimes I talk too much about it.

In fact, I think I have more photos of warehouses than I do my own family.

And that's all good, that's fine.

But as long as you can take that and then turn it into an actionable tool that actually is making at least the world a slightly better place than, you know, how it was when you first got there, that's the best that I can hope for.

For me, logistic with purpose.

It's really.

And thanks to Kelly, because I've learned a lot about logistics from Kel, so thanks for being nerd.

But for me, it's where the real magic begins because what I've experienced is really, that's what we are discussing now.

When there is a purpose in logistics, you're basically moving goods, delivering humanitarian aids.

You really ensure, you know, that our systems, services, communities are connected together.

I would say it's really the magic happening.

Thank you both again.

I know I've said this before and I'll say it again, what you do is really changing the lives of a lot of people.

So you're putting it in your terms, Kelly.

I think the net positive impact is very, very.

I mean, the net impact in what you guys are doing is very positive.

And we appreciate you taking the time for this interview.

So thank you both for, for what you're doing.

And of course, thank you to all your team and the whole organizations that.

Are doing this to kind of peek behind the curtain at what you do.

I think you've shed a lot of light on a lot of different things.

You've given us some insight into your processes and I know you've helped our audience understand both who are working in humanitarian aid and who are maybe not at all.

You know, there's a lot we see on TV and in news that we just don't understand what's happening behind the scenes.

And so as we wrap up, how can our listeners connect with you and of course, learn more about the logistics cluster.

I know you do trainings and working groups and all kinds of amazing things.

So how, how can people get in touch with you and get involved in these, those.

Thanks, Christy.

So I would encourage listeners who are interested in knowing more about the logistic cluster to, first of all, they can reach out to us so we have a logistic cluster inbox.

So it's global logclusterfp.org so we can always reply to them if they have follow up questions or specific.

We're just discussing about curiosity.

So for anything we can just, just reply to them.

And of course we have a logistic cluster website.

Listeners can of course go and visit our website.

All our operation and activities are there with all the technical and operational pages there.

And they can also subscribe to, we have a monthly newsletter so that they will find the link on the webpage.

So in that way they can remain also up to date with all our monthly updates.

And finally, of course social media, we're on x Instagram, LinkedIn and Facebook so we always encourage people to follow us there because we always share stories, interviews and content from our operation and the impact we were discussing before.

So all the information is out there but we remain available for any questions.

So yeah, true communications professional, yes, we'll,.

We'll put all those links to the, to the interview post when we upload it.

And thank you so much.

Normie, thank you so much again.

Kelly, thank you so much for giving us a little time and of course thank you to our audience.

If you like episodes like this, if you like engaging conversations like the one that we just had, don't forget to subscribe.

And thank you once again for listening.

To logistics with purpose.