UPS loves logistics; UNICEF loves UPS! | FieldNotes

http://fieldnotes.unicefusa.org/2011/09/ups_loves_logistics_unicef.html

UPS loves logistics; UNICEF loves UPS!

Posted by UNICEF USA

Josh Harvey is on the Private Sector Partnerships team at the U.S. Fund.

Sometimes, we at the U.S. Fund find ourselves in awe of our partners. With UPS, this is an everyday occurrence.

A friend of the U.S. Fund for over a decade, UPS has provided generous support to UNICEF programs the world over. But UPS’s commitment to the world’s children goes even further; indeed, UPS and UNICEF’s collaboration may well represent the future of partnerships between the private sector and the NGO world.

Even as I write, UPS logistics experts are working hand-in-hand with UNICEF Supply Division in Copenhagen to improve UNICEF’s impressive supply and logistics capacity. UPS staff lent to UNICEF are bringing UPS’s unparalleled expertise in logistics to UNICEF’s life-saving work, helping UNICEF staff figure out how best to manage the nearly $110 million in supplies in our Copenhagen warehouse (which covers over three football fields!), and how best to distribute to regional warehouses and country offices the nearly $2 billion (!) in supplies UNICEF procures annually.

Expertise-sharing partnerships, where companies leverage their core competencies to improve non-profit’s capacity, are the cutting edge in private sector-NGO cooperation, and are proving to be one of the most innovative and impactful ways in which the private sector can support NGO work. Expertise sharing results in lasting improvements to efficiency and effectiveness, which in turn helps UNICEF better deliver for the world’s children.

We’re grateful to UPS for embarking on this innovative initiative with UNICEF, and are thrilled to see the good we can do together when we bring our most valuable resources – our people – together!

(P.S. check out Supply Division’s website – http://www.unicef.org/supply/ these folks are amazing, overseeing almost $2 billion in supplies, 10,000 sea and air shipments annually, and packing and shipping emergency supplies to anywhere in the world within 48 hours!)

–http://uscpublicdiplomacy.org/index.php/newswire/cpdblog_detail/the_new_csr_symbiotic_private_public_partnerships

THE NEW CSR: SYMBIOTIC PRIVATE-PUBLIC PARTNERSHIPS
OCT 13, 2011
Posted by APDS Bloggers
All posts by APDS Bloggers

here is an excerpt from the above link:

APDS Blogger: Sarah Myers

Several MPD students and I had the opportunity to attend a panel hosted by UPS and UNICEF last week on the topic of humanitarian relief efforts. While the subject matter of relief efforts was fascinating, it was the unique, symbiotic relationship between UPS and UNICEFthat held my attention during the course of the panel. The two organizations have developed a true private-public partnership, in a way that holds many lessons for us as diplomacy practitioners.

One of the key takeaways from the discussion was that Corporate Social Responsibility in its truest form has to go far beyond writing a check. Corporations often develop areas of expertise that are truly helpful for charities too in their work, and lending knowledge is almost more valuable than funds. In this example, UPS facilitates UNICEF by helping them to ensure the transportation of goods they have collected runs in the most efficient and stable way possible. Caryl Stern, President and CEO of the U.S. Fund for UNICEF cited UPS' help during the earthquake in Haiti as essential to providing effective aid during the disaster. UNICEF was tasked with providing hundreds of kits including essential supplies to Haiti – but they would have to deliver them to an area with no functional airport – and no roads. Together, UPS and UNICEF mobilized in 48 hours to deliver thousands of goods by plane, truck, and finally foot. This was only possible with UPS' knowledge of logistics, and UNICEF's capacity to mobilize quickly during a disaster, and provided a massive amount of relief to those affected. 

Sarah Myers is a first year Master's Candidate in the Public Diplomacy program. A Washington, DC native, she spent the last three years working for a media research company based in Singapore and traveling around Asia. Her studies are focused on corporate diplomacy, private-public partnerships and digital diplomacy.

The CPD Blog is intended to stimulate dialog among scholars, researchers, practitioners and professionals from around the world in the public diplomacy sphere. The opinions represented here are the authors' own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the USC Center on Public Diplomacy.

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