UN may adopt Dubai as largest global base for operations

Dubai: The city could soon become the biggest operational base for the United Nations worldwide, according to a senior UN official.

Speaking at the Dubai International Humanitarian Aid and Development Conference and Exhibition (Dihad 2006), Mats Persson of the UN World Food Programme (WFP) support branch based in Dubai, said: "Dubai offers some distinct advantages which gives it the potential to become the biggest operational base for the UN."

Elaborating on the advantages Dubai offers, Persson, Chief of Fast IT and Telecoms Emergency and Support Team (Fittest), acknowledged Dubai as being a natural transit point: "Seventy per cent of the WFP emergency areas are a one hop flight from Dubai. You can't do that from any other place."

Advantages

He added: "There are also many other advantages. It is easy to charter planes from Dubai as well as to export and import goods. Also, procurement of large quantities of emergency supplies can also be done locally here with ease."

In six months' time, the support branch is expected to see substantive growth.

"At the moment, we have around 60 employees but are expecting around 100 by the end of the year," said Persson.

The activities of the Dubai branch, based in Humanitarian City, are also projected to expand. "Soon we will also begin to stock food in Dubai. So far, all the food sent from here to emergency areas, for example Iraq, have been transshipped, that is they have been brought to Dubai from other parts of the world and then have been transported ... to Iraq. But within six months' time, we will be stocking food in warehouses right here in Dubai," said Persson.

An additional support team is also expected to join the Dubai branch soon. "The Financial and Administrative Support Team (Fast), currently being modelled in our headquarters in Rome, is also expected to join us within another six months. They will take care of standard administrative and financial procedures in the emergency areas," said Persson.

Activities

As part of its activities, WFP Dubai will organise for the third time its annual Walk the World event next month. A worldwide fund-raising event for WFP, it will be held around Zabeel Park.

For more information, call 04 36 81 383 or fax 04 36 81 381. WFP combats global hunger which afflicts one of every seven people in the world.