WFP.org - Pirates Constant Menace to Food Lifeline

Our friends over at WFP.org have just posted a story about the recent hijacking of the Maersk Line ship the Alabama. The ship is now in port in Mombasa offloading it's cargo of over 4,000 metric tons of corn-soya blend. From the article:

Mombasa is essential to WFP’s operations in these areas. More than 500,000 metric tons of WFP food arrived in Mombasa in 2008 aboard more than 200 ships for the hungry in the region.

Food flowing through the WFP pipeline is managed using the Compas system. For those of you unfamiliar with the system an earlier article on the WFP.org site nicely outlines the system:

At the heart of the World Food Programme's logistics information system is Compas, or the Commodity Movement Processing and Analysis System. At any point along its supply chain—from warehouses, to trucks, to distribution centers—the internally developed software program can give relief workers an accurate, up-to-date snapshot of its food stocks.

All food shipment data is sent from the field to Rome, where a software program takes all the information coming in from the disaster area and updates an Oracle database at headquarters, which, in turn, can then be accessed by people in-country.

While Compas monitors food from port to distribution point, an SAP R/3 system tracks food being shipped from donor countries, such as the U.S., according to quantity and destination.

Together, the systems give the WFP "a complete, global picture," says Bruni, and allow the agency to divert food from one area to another that might be in greater need.

The DELIVER portal that is currently in development will feature the Compas system as one of it's main components and will be accessible to WFP personnel through the portal. Other systems featured will include WINGS2, Aviation, UNHRD and a host of other services.

We posted the following screenshot a while back. The data shown was extracted from the Compas system and overlayed on a Google Map showing the Kenya and Uganda regions. Take a look:

Once the portal is up and running WFP users will be able to visualize Compas data for their region without having to refer directly to the reports. Factors effecting the arrival of shipments will show as variations in the graph visible above. Therefore, the hijacking of the Alabama will utlimately show as a variation in the timeline.