Launched by Abu Dhabi, the HOPE Consortium is an emblem of hope and duty in the face of adversity that was brought to life to value the commitment to the global battle against the COVID-19 pandemic. It represents a complete supply chain solution to address and facilitate vaccine availability across the world. Robert Sutton, Head of Logistics Cluster, Abu Dhabi Ports describes the efforts put forth by the Consortium, importance of partnerships amid the travail and how India should step up its vaccine inoculation drive
Q] What steps has the HOPE Consortium taken to expand their supply chain handling capacity?
We work very closely with local, regional as well as global partners to ensure that we offer the most robust supply chains, and distribution networks. Each of our partners forms a core pillar of the HOPE Consortium’s complete end-to-end supply chain solution which ensures the integrity of our operations during all stages of the process. So far, leveraging our end-to-end supply chain we have handled over 65 million vaccine doses across 40 countries. This has been achieved via a unique and collaborative approach which has linked both the physical and digital supply chain from production to those in need.
Q] How has the HOPE consortium positioned itself as platform to bring stakeholders together to create an unmatched supply chain for the handling of temperature-sensitive COVID-19 vaccines transportation?
The objective of the HOPE Consortium is to facilitate mass global access to COVID-19 vaccines by serving as the complete, one-stop logistics solution for vaccine manufacturers, resellers, distributors, international governments, IGOs and NGOs. To do this, we realised that we need to assemble strategic partners who share the same
vision under the banner of the HOPE Consortium. Through our partners, we have developed one of the most extensive and integrated, end-to-end supply chain solutions in the world.
We have collectively developed a unique hub & spoke model in Abu Dhabi. The model allows us to store large quantities of vaccines at our advanced cold and ultra-cold storage hub in Abu Dhabi and align our deliveries with the ability of recipient countries and communities to receive these supplies safely.
We aim to continue developing deeper and more meaningful strategic partnerships across the region and the world to fulfil our goal of equitable vaccine distribution.
Thanks to the strategic capabilities of our partners, The HOPE Consortium can reach 170 destinations within 1-10
hours of flight time.
Q] What should India do to step up the world’s largest vaccine inoculation drive?
Procurement will be a critical component of the supply chain that will help realise India’s ambition around mass vaccinations. That leaves a lot of work that needs to be done to meet the national goal of 1 billion fully vaccinated Indians.
We do recognise that India is quite diverse in its regions and presents a variety of logistical and infrastructural challenges. For this reason, we are establishing all the necessary tools and capabilities to support the on-ground distribution and storage of any number of vaccine batches, specifically so that they can be safely delivered and administered in hard-to-reach areas.
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