Syrian Arab Republic: Syria: Logistics Cluster - Concept of Operations, 21 January 2019
Background
Since the beginning of the crisisin 2011, ongoing fighting and widespread insecurity have continued to fuel largescale displacements, increase vulnerabilities and constrain humanitarian access across the country. According to the 2018 Humanitarian Needs Overview (HNO), around 13.1 million people in Syria require humanitarian assistance. Of these,
5.6 million people are in acute need due to a convergence of vulnerabilities resulting from displacement, exposure to hostilities, and limited access to basic goods and services.
The scale of the humanitarian crisis continues to require a large-scale, sustained and comprehensive response from the humanitarian community to provide the affected population with critical cross-sectoral assistance.
As a streamlined effort to enhance coordination and operational capacity among the humanitarian actors active in Syria and enhance the effectiveness of the overall response, through the provision of a set of tailored logistics services, the WFP-led Logistics Cluster was activated in Syria in January 2013.
The Logistics Cluster currently facilitates access to crucial logistics services for all operations across the region, including land transport to inter-agency humanitarian convoys, contingency fuel provision, cross-border transhipment, and storage services. In September 2014, the Whole of Syria (WoS) approach was adopted as a result of the UN Security Council Resolution 2165, bringing togetherregionalseparate operationsinto a single framework.
Logistics Gaps and Bottlenecks
Access and security constraints remain the largest impediments faced by the humanitarian community in reaching vulnerable communities with life-saving relief supplies inside Syria.
In particular, the Logistics Cluster, together with the partnering organizations, has identified the following logistics gaps:
• Restrictions on movement of humanitarian cargo and need to maintain Inter-Agency Humanitarian Convoys to reach newly accessible areas in Syria.
• Need for the coordination of cross-border transhipment services (from Turkey to Syria).
• Limited storage capacity for prepositioning across Syria.
• Lack of a reliable fuel supply chain for immediate emergency response.
• Need for coordination and circulation of logistics information.
• Increasing need for dedicated logistics training.
Objectives
Based on the needs identified, the Logistics Cluster aims to provide the humanitarian community with facilitated access to sufficient and reliable logistics services and consolidated information related to logistics capacities, to ensure a timely and uninterrupted supply of life saving relief items to affected populations in Syria and enhance the capacity of the humanitarian community to deliver relief items to challenging locations.
