The Panamanian humanitarian hub that attends emergencies throughout the region

Since its construction in 2018, the Regional Logistics Center for Humanitarian Assistance, located in Panama, has served to assist the different emergencies that have occurred in recent years in countries such as Haiti, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, the Caribbean islands and even, Venezuela.

The center has an area that covers approximately two football stadiums, about 12,000 square meters in which, in addition to the United Nations warehouse, there is also that of the International Red Cross.

In this place, during 2021, around 4,500 tons of humanitarian aid were mobilized for more than 30 countries throughout the region.

Alberto Sierra, director of the Humanitarian Hub explained to the voice of america, that the center “has great value for the Republic of Panama, since during this time of pandemic, this crisis that we have had with COVID-19, the logistics center has been a point of distribution and storage of support for COVID -19 and also from some feeding points that have been necessary for the most vulnerable areas”.

According to him, the main benefit of the hub is to generate an “economy of scale” and the movement of 60 million dollars (in 2021) shows this.

The idea was born in 2012, with a group of institutions that supported the Panamanian government, to give value to this project. In 2014, it was installed and in 2018 the first stage was completed. A year later, practically all the warehouses were up and running and by 2020, it was fully operational.

Today, explains Sierra, they have 12,000 square meters to move 3,000 tons of cargo. It is planned that, in a second stage, the area will be expanded to 40 thousand square meters. The investment, so far, has been 24 million dollars, says the official, and the maintenance cost is approximately 800,000 dollars a year.

two fronts

There, according to Sierra, two international organizations work there, the International Federation Red Cross and Red Crescent, “which work based on their national red crosses, the needs that they have internally in each country, then, apart from the fact that there may be a situation of crisis or an emergency in a particular countryall countries have situations, whether they are floods or landslides… there is always a constant movement of support merchandise to these countries”.

For its part, the United Nations humanitarian response depot works on the basis of its strategic partners that they have internally, such as UNICEF, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) or the International Organization for Migration (IOM) . In this case, “they don’t necessarily have to have a crisis situation to move cargo, but they constantly have cargo movement” as support from the region,” adds Sierra.

Both the International Red Cross and the United Nations Humanitarian Depot were established in Panama during the 2000s (2001 and 2007 respectively); however, they did not have adequate space to maintain supplies and equipment for distribution to the rest of the continent.

The deposit in Panama is one of the six that the United Nations has in the world and the only one on this continent. It has more than 100 partners around the world, including the US government. Twenty-two of those partners use the Panama headquarters. Its partners are United Nations agencies, governments and NGOs.

From 36 to 48 hours is the response time for an emergency from this part of the continent. Due to its location, infrastructure and logistics, this humanitarian center represents a saving of more than 1,500,000 dollars in annual rent for the international institutions that cooperate here with the rest of the continent, as explained to the VOA Francisco Quesada, director of the United Nations Humanitarian Response Depot in Panama.

“As long as a charter flight is chartered, it is much cheaper than hiring a space on a commercial flight. We can be talking about differences of 50 or 75 percent with respect to a commercial flight,” says Quesada, who affirms that the growth of movement of tons, year after year is continuous, since it adds that from 2019 to August of this year, there has been a growth of “300 percent in all terms, both in the volume of shipping activities in dollars that are moved, in the cost of the stocks, in metric tons and in cubic capacity”.

In monetary terms, he stated that so far this year, the movement of the deposit amounts to around 12 million dollars.

For his part, Mauricio Bustamante, head of the Regional Logistics Unit of the International Federation of the Red Cross in Panama, explained to the VOA that, in 2001, the emergency response unit was installed in Panama. From there, the needs are covered by 35 red crosses in the region and some European subsidiaries that are also in the Caribbean.

He clarifies that his office reacts, not only in case of big disasters but also small emergencies of first aid and community programs; for example, the migrant crisis.

Now that the supplies are present in Panama, the Red Cross has moved approximately 4,000 tons of merchandise to the countries, and some 15 million dollars have been invested in merchandise, according to Bustamante.

Emergency care

The Center has given that opportunity to have that internal logistics platform, to be able to receive and support the most vulnerable areas, from the humanitarian focus.

Climatic phenomena, health emergencies and even the migration crisis are just some of the events that have impacted the continent in recent years and have challenged the response capacity of some governments.

In the case of the warehouse, they must have a stock of supplies ready so that the partner organizations can respond in an emergency. For this reason, they have all the elements that they call high turnover, such as water purification tablets, water treatment plants, tents, tarpaulins, kitchen, hygiene and sanitary kits, medicines, as well as mobile warehouses and prefabricated houses to reside or to work.

Quesada explained to the VOA that, in 2018, they had to work to attend to “the Fuego volcano in Guatemala, in 2019, the La Soufrière volcano also in the Caribbean, Hurricane Dorian; 2020, the pandemic, the Hurricanes Eta and Iota. [En] 2021, the Haiti earthquake. It is evident that right now there is a migrant crisis on the border with Colombia, in the Darién area. We are working with the UNHCR, with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, with the International Organization for Migration to try to alleviate the situation of migrants there because it is delicate.”

For his part, Bustamante affirmed that they have dealt with major disasters such as the earthquake in Haiti, hurricanes Matthew and Irma, the Venezuelan migration crisisamong others.

He added that the basic basket of supplies that they manage to guarantee a decent well-being to those affected are tents, plastic tarps, reconstruction materials, cleaning, housing and cleaning kits. “When we have to buy food, we do it in the country of origin, unless the elk is very large,” he adds.

In addition, they carry out first aid activities, preparing youth brigades, emergenciesor sending supplies for communication work, advocacy, among others.

According to Sierra, one of the projects currently being handled by the hub is the development of a humanitarian ecosystem, which not only provides a warehouse and storage area, but also “a business center where we can offer training areas… housing, schools, universities to offer an ecosystem for everyone who wants to come to the humanitarian hub of Panama”, a project that they hope to have ready this year.

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