Uber works with UN to deliver emergency food and supplies in Ukraine
Uber has created a “private-label” version of its platform to help the United Nations deliver food and water supplies to parts of Ukraine.
With larger vehicles facing issues reaching those in need in built-up areas, collaboration with Uber allows United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) to better coordinate, dispatch and track a fleet of smaller vehicles delivering relief items from warehouses to people in need in densely populated areas of Ukraine.
Through this platform, WFP can get its food closer to those people needing its support, dispatching deliveries in various sizes of vehicle, tracking each trip to its destination, and confirming deliveries have been made safely.
Uber has already delivered food from its warehouse in Dnipro to other parts of the city, ready for distribution. Further deliveries are also ongoing in other parts of the country, including Lviv, Vinnytsia, Kyiv and Chernivtsi. The progress of deliveries can be tracked in real-time through the platform.
The operations have been rapidly scaled up in and around Ukraine over the past three months. By the end of June, WFP will be providing food and cash to more than 3 million people per month in the country.
“WFP is playing a critical role in providing food and cash assistance to those most affected by the war in Ukraine. This technology helps WFP facilitate its response and improves how we serve communities in Ukraine that rely on us,” said Matthew Hollingworth, The WFP’s Emergency Coordinator in Ukraine. “It enhances our access to Ukrainian businesses within Uber’s network, making our operations more efficient while also harnessing local capacities.”
Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said:“Uber is thrilled to be working with WFP to help them more efficiently distribute emergency food relief across Ukraine, by providing free access to a customised version of the Uber platform”.
“Using our technology, WFP can now schedule, dispatch, track, and manage deliveries by a network of cars and small vans to final distribution points within a 100km radius of WFP warehouses across the country.”