Former WFP official urges UN to test a larger private-sector role in aid delivery

A proposal beyond cost-cutting

Yahia's proposal would extend the private sector's role beyond supplying food, vehicles, fuel, technology, transport and warehouse services. Where conditions allow, contractors could manage procurement, logistics and distribution together, rather than leaving humanitarian agencies to combine those services into delivery operations of their own.

He presents this as a model to test, not a claim that businesses are always more efficient or can operate everywhere. The question, he argues, is whether competition, commercial incentives and companies' ability to adapt could sometimes achieve humanitarian goals at less expense than maintaining agencies' own permanent delivery capacity.

Yahia, whose career spans more than three decades in humanitarian work, development and international cooperation, supports the UN80 reform effort. Cutting posts, combining functions and supply chains, moving work to less expensive locations and removing duplication can save money, he writes. But he questions whether those measures go far enough.

The Secretary-General's UN80 progress report, released May 26, 2026, reported a 21% reduction in Secretariat staff positions for 2026. About 230 Secretariat posts were relocated from high-cost to lower-cost locations, within roughly 2,300 positions moved across the UN system.

Supply-chain reform is also being tested through the UN's New Humanitarian Compact in Afghanistan, Haiti, the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Somalia and Sudan. The compact seeks to unify humanitarian supply chains, which the Secretary-General said account for 70% of overall humanitarian spending.

An operation that shaped the argument

Yahia grounds his proposal in an operation involving people who had fled war and become stranded in a remote, harsh desert, far from communities, markets and basic infrastructure. He does not identify the country, saying that would risk identifying the population.

Before aid could be distributed directly, senior managers spent substantial time negotiating access and several ambassadors pressed for a solution. The eventual operation incurred not only the cost of supplies and transport but also the expense of UN administrative and security requirements, diplomacy and management time.

A later approach put a private operator in charge of buying supplies, transporting them into the area and distributing them. According to Yahia, commercial operators navigated access difficulties and completed the work at significantly lower cost than the direct operation.

Reports from the area also described trading and money-transfer businesses emerging even as conventional humanitarian access remained difficult and expensive. For Yahia, the experience exposed a distinction: gaining entry for an aid organization is not necessarily the same as getting assistance to people.

Gaza's trade, prices and aid cuts

Yahia cites Gaza as another example of commerce persisting amid destruction, insecurity, restrictions and severe humanitarian need. He points to an OCHA situation report released in September that recorded 884 commercial truckloads entering Gaza during one week, including 290 carrying goods classified as nonessential.

He interprets that trade as evidence of commercial networks' ability to find demand and move supplies under extreme conditions. Profit depends on demand backed by purchasing power, he notes, making the continued trade striking given Gaza's destruction, displacement and deprivation. He does not argue that markets can substitute for humanitarian action.

OCHA's report covering September 7-13, 2026, also documented pressure on household purchasing power. It put inflation at approximately 200% above pre-October 2023 levels and reported that a 25-kilogram sack of flour had risen 35% in price in a week, averaging ILS 63, or about USD 21. OCHA said reduced humanitarian distributions, disrupted private-sector supply chains, or both may have contributed to the increase.

Funding shortages have also forced reductions in food assistance. On October 19, 2026, WFP announced a cut of about one-third in Gaza, lowering monthly support from about 1.6 million people to 1.1 million. It also announced that food rations would be halved and daily hot meals reduced from 250,000 to 150,000. WFP said it urgently needed USD 450 million to sustain operations in Gaza and the West Bank from October 2026 through March 2027.

Delivery contracts would require independent oversight

Under Yahia's proposal, agencies would delegate more implementation without surrendering humanitarian responsibility. He calls for greater investment in assessing needs, identifying beneficiaries, analyzing data, designing programs, understanding markets and planning responses. Standards, monitoring, evaluation and accountability would also need strengthening rather than simply being cut to save money.

Contracts could make payment conditional on independently verifiable evidence that supplies reached the intended recipients. But proof of distribution would not, by itself, establish success. Agencies would still need to define the intended humanitarian results, such as preventing famine, saving lives and improving well-being, then independently assess whether the intervention achieved them.

That would require aid organizations to retain their own post-distribution monitoring and assessment. The contractor would carry out and document delivery; the humanitarian organization would verify performance and examine the effect on people's lives.

Yahia also sees value in local businesses' knowledge of authorities, including de facto authorities, as well as transport networks, communities and security conditions. He acknowledges the possibility of market failures and poor contractor performance, arguing that competition, explicit standards, independent checks and strong humanitarian supervision can address those risks.

Partnership limits and unpredictable funding

Research on private-sector engagement shows both participation and gaps in formal arrangements. A report published June 23, 2026, by the Center for Humanitarian Logistics and Regional Development (CHORD), commissioned by Airlink and funded by the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, found that 95% of surveyed private-sector respondents had donated services since January 2024. Only 32%, however, had formal partnership frameworks or engagement policies.

The same report found private-sector actors were 10% less willing to donate services for conflicts or complex crises than for sudden-onset disasters.

Yahia links his proposed operating model to the instability of humanitarian financing. Agencies dependent largely on voluntary, unpredictable contributions cannot sustainably maintain permanent staff and infrastructure without reliable long-term funding, he argues. Previous funding downturns have brought staffing cuts and consolidation, followed by renewed expansion as resources and demands increased.

Contracts for defined tasks and results could instead allow delivery capacity to grow or shrink with needs and available resources, he writes, reducing the need to repeatedly build and dismantle permanent operations. His proposed shift is conditional: use private operators where evidence supports better efficiency and lower costs, while strengthening agencies' assessment, program design, standards and accountability.