Radio Miraya
2781: UNHAS: 20 Years of Humanitarian Air Service in South Sudan and Around the Globe
Just diving into our conversation in South Sudan, the majority of people in need of humanitarian assistance leave in remote locations and are often cut off due to poor road networks and natural disasters such as floods. Over the years, the United Nations Humanitarian Air Service has been connecting aid workers with these communities ensuring no one is left behind. On-house is celebrating 20 years of unwavering commitment to connecting aid workers and communities not only in South Sudan but across the globe. To help us explore on his 20 years of existence and operations in South Sudan, we have Joffrey Mohangi, the head of the UNHAS in South Sudan. Well, good morning, Joffrey. Thank you so much for making our time to speak to us today. Good morning, Irene. Thank you for giving me this opportunity. Right. So United Nations Humanitarian Air Service is celebrating 20 years. Just tell us more about this celebration. The beating 20 years of UNHAS is a significant milestone for us. UNHAS was established in 2004 at the request of the United Nations High-Level Committee on Management. Over the last two decades, we have provided reliable and safe air transport for the humanitarian aid workers, especially in the most, wild, most challenging environment, including South Sudan, and we are also operating in other 25 countries across the world. This is an opportunity for us to appreciate and acknowledge the partnership we have forged with the UN agencies, NGOs, and the local communities we have. We are proud of the impact we have made and are committed to continuing our mission to reach the most vulnerable population. As you know, in South Sudan, most of the people in need of the humanitarian assistance live in remote areas, which are mostly cut off by due to poor road network. UNHAS comes in to fill this gap by ensuring that no one in need of assistance is left behind. We are also grateful to our donors and our partners, and we trust and the trust they have given us to continue serving the humanitarian community, and we look in the future to continue to bring this to a number of the humanitarian efforts to thrive. So, ensuring no one in need of assistance is left out or left behind, in what way, UNHAS adopted its operations to address logistical and accessibility challenges posed by South Sudan's diverse and often difficult terrain. Yeah, thank you, ensuring no one in need of assistance is left out is our core principle, and phone has operations on especially South Sudan. The South Sudan diverse and difficult terrain offers unique logistics and accessibility challenges. We have come up with various ways to adapt and ensure that our service is delivered, and those vulnerable people are all summed. First, we have come up with a fleet of aircraft that are able to operate in paved landways or remote airstrips. This includes helicopters and fixed wings. And fixed wings are from small to big and medium sized aircraft, and we are able to serve more than 244 agencies, humanitarian organizations in South Sudan. An example in 2023, we were able using this fleet that I have just described to serve more than 75,000 passengers, and this year, we already have served about 33,000 passengers. Secondly, we have come up with a system, and a tool... Before you go there, how many aircraft are in this fleet? We have 12 aircraft for UNHAS, three helicopters and nine fixed wing aircraft, but we also have other seven that support WFP logistics that we also manage. Yes, please continue. We also have come up with a system and planning tools that helps us to optimize the routes and schedules. This ensures efficiency in coordinating multiple missions, maximize the reach and minimize delays, and ensuring timely delivery of humanitarian aid. We also maintain very close collaboration with local authorities, UN agencies and NGOs to give us real-time information on field conditions, growth conditions, especially now during the during the season. This allows us to adapt our operations swiftly in response to challenging circumstances, ensuring the safety of our passengers and success and success of our missions. Without tool has it would be hard to provide assistance to people who live in areas where the road network is bad and access is a challenge. I know you've mentioned that you do coordinate with the government and local authorities, but in the same coordination, how do you work with them in order for them to allocate air transport resources, especially during emergencies and rapid response situations? How do you work with them in that area? Thank you. We work very closely with the government, but mainly through the South Sudan civil division authority, we have had many programs with the South Sudan CAA which includes a capacity building to the staff so that they are able to to to manage the operation. We also have invested a lot in airstrips that are not only used by Wunhas, these are examples of room-based ball and business tree length. We improve these airstrips and we we have been having a lot of forums where we have all the aviation stakeholders, we have established this as Wunhas, we meet on a regular basis to discuss the challenges that we are facing and this involves also CAA, it's headed by the CAA and Wunhas has been a critical part of this forum. Right. So safety is a heartbeat of aviation. What measures does Wunhas implement once you are safety and security of its passengers and the crew members? Wunhas follows the international civil aviation organization Eco standards in ensuring the safety and security of its passengers and crew. We have employed high qualified staff who who are competent enough, they supervise and manages what we do, coordinate and operate and maintain an oversight on what we are doing. On a country level we also have aviation safety programs and aviation security programs and we have also policies that guide us, SOPs that we strictly follow to ensure that our operation is safe. We carry also we carry legular checks on our aircraft, provide legular aviation trainings and we have a very robust and active safety unit that monitors to ensure that aircraft that we are using are well maintained, crew well trained and the recruitment and procurement of the aircraft and crew is as per United Nations aviation standards. Right. And Geoffrey, thank you so much for making our time to speak to us. We would like to hear a successful story or an example where Wunhas played a critical role in providing opportunities for South Sudan nationals. Wunhas is a United Nations service provider, managed by WFP and as such Wunhas is an equal opportunity entity. Again, an example at the moment we have more than 140 Wunhas staff. Out of that almost 115 are South Sudanese. Through the years we have been here, we were here since 2004. We have seen South Sudanese grow to become international staff. We also have established a volunteer program where we bring onboard young university students to work with us for a period of time, more to create awareness in aviation and we have had a very successful program. We have been able to retain some of them and others are absorbed by the aviation entities in South Sudan. Right. So what's your final message to our listeners? Wunhas relies every on generous contribution from our donors. We would appreciate the donors who have supported us throughout these years. We also appreciate the government of South Sudan through the South Sudan Civil Vision Authority for the good collaboration that enables us to transport humanitarian workers across South Sudan without hindrances. Finally, I would like to encourage the young South Sudanese to pick an interest in aviation because they have the potential to make a big contribution. Right. Geoffrey, thank you so much for your time. Thank you. Thank you. Great. And you're listening to the Miraya Break for Sure. The nation's biggest conversations begin every morning. Geoffrey Wangay, the head of on us in South Sudan, of course, on us, is celebrating 20 years of unwavering commitment to connecting aid workers and communities, not only in South Sudan, but across the globe.