In January 2017, a total of 207 asylum-seekers, refugees and forcibly displaced persons received a first batch of free milk products from the local Belarusian branch of Danone, a French multinational food-products company.
In-kind contributions can form a vital part of our response to crises faced by refugees worldwide. Traditional gifts in kind include soap, baby diapers, clothing, footwear, mattresses and mosquito nets, but non-traditional items such as heavy engineering equipment are also welcome if they match our needs and specifications. One example of an in-kind donation is the long-standing partnership that UNHCR has with the Japanese retailer UNIQLO. Since 2006, UNIQLO has donated over 10 million pieces of clothing to our operations.
UNHCR accepts in-kind donations on the following basis:
UNHCR and the Belarusian branch of Danone started discussing a collaboration almost a year ago. The two partners had to spend this time on solving a number of issues related to the logistics of the collaboration.
As commented by UNHCR Representative in Belarus Jean-Yves Bouchardy, “the company’s top managers expressed their interest in collaboration. However, it appeared that their enthusiasm was not enough to make the project a reality. Danone is a producer of dairy products but not a retailer. It does not own its stores and, therefore, cannot directly distribute the products among our persons of concern. That was a major challenge. It took us some time to find the way out.”
The local Danone branch addressed several major retailers, asking to assist with distribution. However, this was an unforeseen and unpaid workload to be imposed on staff so no stores were ready to deal with this.
It was finally decided to engage the Belarusian Red Cross, UNHCR’s implementing partner. This posed new challenges. First of all, the BRC had 9 sub-offices in Minsk and requested to provide products to all of them so no one would be left out. This added 9 new locations to already packed delivery list of Danone’s logistics partner. In addition to that, the BRC neither possessed refrigerators to store the products nor had it sufficient human resources to arrange a give-away.
“It has been a true learning experience for us,” said Gleb Khralenkov, Member of Board of Directors at Danone Belarus. “It was agreed to donate several refrigerators to be filled with dairy products and arrange the delivery through our logistics partner. The first distributive has taken place, and we’ve seen refugee families benefiting from the much-needed food items. I think we’ve all felt a part of a great cause. The deliveries will now become a regular practice.”
First-ever distribution of Danone products to refugees and asylum-seekers in Minsk. © UNHCR/Y.Miashkova
In recent years, engaging the business sector into humanitarian work has been one of UNHCR’s priorities in Belarus. However, against the backdrop of economic difficulties in the country, most private companies are unable to provide direct financial aid. Ensuring in-kind donations has proven to be a win-win solution for both UNHCR and the business sector.
Earlier, a number of enterprises supported UNHCR’s persons of concern with their produce: a top Belarusian hosiery company donated its items for refugee children, several mobile operators granted laptops for refugee families, and a fashion retail company suggested regular donations of recycled clothing. All in all, throughout 2016, UNHCR’s efforts in approaching the private sector in Belarus resulted in a total of 9 companies’ having provided assistance to forcibly displaced persons – 4 of them in the form of in-kind contributions.
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