To help the United Nations deliver emergency food and water supplies to war-affected areas of Ukraine, Uber has built a special version of its delivery platform and is currently working with the UN’s World Food Programme.
Structural damage to parts of Ukraine has made it difficult to send large delivery trucks to areas of the country. TUber’s platform allows the WFP to coordinate fleets of smaller vehicles to deliver supplies. The drivers for this program are a mix of Ukraine-based Uber drivers, and WFP-picked drivers and vehicles.
"It's not like you can wait a month to get food to people - people have got to get food immediately," said WFP executive director David Beasley, in a statement. "You can't go a few weeks without food, and so using Uber's technology, their distribution systems, their dispatch systems… it really is a great success story."
The deliveries are being tested in Dnipro, a central city, with the hope that they will be later rolled out to Lviv, Vinnytsia, Kyiv, and Chernivtsi.
Related: Panel: War in Ukraine’s Impact on the Global Food System; Report: DoorDash Reveals Ordering Trends
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