Moving 5500 tons for the World Food Programme

Delivering 5500 tons of food to vulnerable societies far off in the desert requires two things to succeed:

• Enough trucks
• Timely delivery.

Commencing November 29 in the Port of Lomé, Togo, 320 containers were unloaded and reloaded onto 150 trucks before heading to Mali and Niger. Traversing the desert and passing through high-risk territory, the closest destinations took an estimated 21 days to arrive and up to 32 days to reach the remotest villages. The cargo was discharged in the regional WFP warehouses servicing the needing regions.

A major logistical operation

A major logistical operation like this is everyday work to Aw Abdoulatif, Managing Director, Africa:

“For five years, we have been a selected forwarder to the WFP in this challenging region. Continuously, we have proven our high-performance standard by ensuring very little and negligible loss in bulk transportation, enabling a high degree of foods redistribution and thus helping to save lives in emergency areas”.

The award was received based on competitive rates and scoring 4 on a maximum of 5 in the half-yearly supplier evaluation performed by WFP.

Local expertise, global reach

It’s the experienced Aid & Relief experts like Aw and his team that makes complex operations like this seem easy. A number of transports a year are planned and executed from the local office in Lomé, delivering tons of cargo across the rugged, dry, and challenging West African region.

However, their know-how and experience are shared across the entire global SGL network whenever complex transports in complicated areas need to become uncomplicated logistics.