Dubai: As part of a major expansion initiative for the International Humanitarian City (IHC) approved by His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai last month, Giuseppe Saba, a leading logistics expert with extensive experience with the United Nations, has been appointed as Chief Executive Officer with effect from March 4, 2017.
Chairperson of the IHC Princess Haya Bint Al Hussain, wife of Shaikh Mohammed, announced Saba’s appointment. “There is no one in the global aid community with a stronger background in logistics than Giuseppe Saba. We are so fortunate to have him. He was instrumental in the founding of the United Nation’s system of Humanitarian Response Depots (UNHRD), which Shaikh Mohammed has so generously supported, and he will guide us in expanding and improving the IHC in the years ahead.”
For more than a decade, Saba served as head of the UNHRD, which has aid depots in Italy, Malaysia, Ghana, Panama and Spain, in addition to the IHC, which is the largest member of the system. These depots have been engaged in delivering aid in crises as diverse as earthquakes in Pakistan and Haiti, droughts in eastern and southern Africa, and the ongoing civil conflicts in Syria, Iraq and Yemen. Earlier in his career, Saba held a high-level position in logistics with the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and served in both logistics and the health sector with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Italy.
Saba joined the staff of the IHC on December 4, 2016, to help develop an ongoing restructuring programme leading to the expansion plans and strategy recently approved by Shaikh Mohammad.
