Summary
Content
1. AVIATION
2. GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION SYSTEMS (GIS)
3. LOGISTICS COORDINATION
1. AVIATION
ECHO FLIGHT resumes humanitarian flights in DRC
The first ECHO Flight left Kinshasa on Monday 15 May to link the eastern towns of Beni and Goma, both North Kivu province. ECHO had suspended the flights in the DRC in 2005 after it terminated its contract with an aviation company which was operating ECHO Flight.
The new ECHO Fleet is made up of 2 aircraft:
- A DASH 8 with a capacity of 30 pax (or the equivalent in Cargo) that links every Monday Kinshasa to Goma via Beni/ Bunia and once a month via Mbuji-Mayi. Every Tuesday, that plane links Goma to South Kivu (Bukavu) and Katanga (Kalemie, Moba, Mitwaba, and Malemba Nkulu). On Friday, the plane returns to Kinshasa.
- A Cessna Caravan permanently based in Goma will complement the DASH 8. It will fly from Goma to South Kivu, North Katanga and Maniema main localities
The access to ECHO Flights is prioritized as follows:
1. Projects directly funded by the EU( European Union)
2. Projects funded by an EU member state
3. Projects with another source of funding
Each organisation has to submit to ECHO a list of staff members likely to fly with ECHO
That list should be sent to : Kamaal.quraishy@cec.eu.int
Copy to echoflight@cec.eu.int, guy.van-eeckhoudt@cec.eu.int
Phone: 00 (254) (0)20 2802416/08
Fax: 00 (254) (0) 20 2722858
Bookings are made between two weeks and 48 Hours before the flight via
Ms. Shamim Chevalier Phone +243 811830934 (Vodacom)
+243 994000873 (celtel)
Email: shamim.chevalier@yahoo.com
beladewali@yahoo.fr
shamim@tridentaviation.com
For more information check www.unjlc.org or send an e-mail to drc.info@unjlc.org
The Schedule and Standard Operating Procedures of ECHO Flight are available on the UNJLC website via www.unjlc.org/DRC/air_ops/schedules
Air Safety Evaluation
UNJLC has forwarded to IATA a recent report on the visit paid to the air carriers evaluated in December 2005. The document is a progress report on the implementation of recommendations made to them.
The DSRSG-Humanitarian coordinator has requested that the three air carriers who are the most advanced in the implementation of measures recommended by IATA be evaluated soon in order to know if it is possible to increase the air transport options for the humanitarian community.
UNJLC will stay in touch with IATA and the said air carriers to organize the post-evaluation as soon as possible.
Coordination of Humanitarian Air Transport Operators (HATOs)
UNJLC sent a questionnaire in April to assess the needs in terms of air transport for the humanitarian community. Since many organisations have not returned them, UNJLC requests all the community to return them rapidly in order to have accurate figures of the demand of air transport countrywide.
2. GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION SYSTEMS (GIS)
Partnerships with GIS Working Group cooperating institutions
UNJLC met with the Infrastructure cell of the Ministry of public works. That cell, in charge of the follow up of road rehabilitation projects corrected and validated the map on road infrastructure and rehabilitation projects drawn by UNJLC (the new map is now available on the UNJLC website). The Infrastructure cell is willing to use the common database and to participate in its enrichment. The cell proposed to add in the database a file compiling all the civil engineering structures
RVF has completed its work consisting in the validation of data on waterways. RVF technical staff has done a meticulous work to verify and supplement the data from UNJLC. The draught for every stretch of the river have been reviewed and specified.
UNJLC met with experts from the French cooperation. The aim of the meeting was to see to what extent the GIS project could fit in with the objectives and capabilities of the French cooperation in order to perpetuate it. A discussion paper will be drafted by UNJLC and will define the conditions of the deployment of the database (hosting, GIS correspondents, circulation of information, set up of a GIS organization). That expertise report will be drafted by the end of June and discussed within the GIS Working Group/UNJLC. It will then be presented to potential long term hosts of the common the common database.
Availability of the common database and training.
The first update of the common database is available on the UNJLC website. Arc Explorer (A GIS viewer) can also be downloaded.
Thanks to the French cooperation who proposed to avail a room equipped with computers (Bibliothèque Universitaire de Limete) for training. UNJLC is preparing training sessions for institutions partners to the GIS Working Group. The aim of those training sessions is to make national institutions involved in the long term maintenance of the common database.
Similar training sessions are planned for UN agencies and NGOs interested in the use of that tool.
UNJLC GIS Officer will soon be on a mission in Goma to explain to humanitarian community the potential use of the common database. A presentation is scheduled during the Goma Logistics cluster that will take place on 25 May.
Those training sessions are not intended at modifying the functioning of the organisations involved. They can be viewed as a first step towards the deployment of the database. It will enable to identify the technical staff or managers that can become GIS correspondents (i.e. a person who can link his organisation with the database manager)
Maintenance of the common database
The comparison work with the general map drawn by the Belgian university of Louvain based on remote sensing methods has been completed.
Not any element (from a geometric point of view) has been removed or modified from the common GIS database. The attribute " type " of road stretches is now displayed as follows: Paved road, unpaved road, track, country road and Elements invisible to remote sensing methods will be classified as tracks
The corrections proposed by the infrastructure cell have been done, the corrections proposed by Régie des Voies Fluviales haven't been taken into account in the database yet and the scanning of Air Serv data files has been completed
Maintenance of the thematic database
UNJLC is in the process to launch the collection of thematic data specific to each UN agency (UNHCR, OCHA etc.)
Mapping
All UNJLC DRC maps are available online via www.unjlc.org/DRC/maps.
A map of the road network including the new topology has been updated. That map presents the state of the roads and the infrastructure rehabilitation projects. That map has been validated by Office des Routes and Cellule Infrastructure. All the topographic maps have been updated with the new typology of the road network.
- The A3 map of Katanga (including mined areas) has also been updated.
- Upon OCHA Uvira request, an A3 Map of Uvira and Fizi region has been drawn.
- A topographic map of the Ituri District has been drawn.
- A map of MONUC fuel facilities and the needs of agencies have been drawn.
- A map of Katanga air strips has also been drawn
3. LOGISTICS COORDINATION
Transport capacity sharing platform
The transport capacity sharing platform developed by UNJLC within the framework of the transport sub- working group is now ready for field use and deployment. Agencies and NGOs interested in the use of that platform have been requested to assign a staff member who will be granted the right to become operator in the tool.Applications can be sent to nuru.jumaine@wfp .org and cc to: christophe.guitton@wfp.org.
UNJLC mission in Katanga
UNJLC has deployed its Logistics officer to Lubumbashi to support the activities of the Logistics cluster.
According to a first report drafted by WFP, OCHA and UNJLC on the quantity of humanitarian to be moved: 584 tons needed to be moved to Mitwaba, 587 tons to Pweto, 410 tons to Bukama, 1021 tons to Malemba Nkulu, 120 tons to Kolwezi, 150 tons to Lualaba and 859 tons to the District of Tanganyika.
These figures are provisional and UNJLC is in the process to compile the data on cargo to be moved by UN agencies and humanitarian NGOs.