Pakistan’s COVID-19 Response: Getting Rations to the Needy
As is often the case with solutions, it is the simplest ones that are the most elegant and applicable. Problem statement is as follows: delivery of food or rations to needy in urban and in rural areas.
Solution can be as follows: use the local kiryana-stores and hawkers supplemented by mohalla and village volunteers.
Constraints to be overcome include the following: identifying the needy; keeping basic food and household consumer goods supply chains operational; avoid people to people physical contact; avoid lines and congregations; avoid prompting households to leave homes.
I must have forgotten some, but I narrow down the problem as to how unpaid distribution of such rations can be managed. The assumption here is that such rations will preclude perishables.
Almost every community knows its needy—by and large. Exceptions are the sprawling urban and peri-urban kothis’ based neighborhoods, like in Islamabad and in the Bahrias and DHAs of this country’s many large cities. We should use the mosques and the mohalla committees and the community and village and union-council based organizations to do the targeting. This also holds for all katchi-abadis and other illegal settlements. These sources can be farmed using smart phones or regular phones with IVR type technology.
Once needy are identified the aim should be delivery to the doorstep. For this to happen the government can through the army utilize local kiryana-stores and other small to medium general merchandise stores in urban and rural localities as the source points for the deliveries to originate from. Utility stores can also be coopeted and so can the armed forces CSDs. These locations can be geo-tagged for ease of ensuring the supply chain. Supply chains and related logistics can be ensured through a communion of army and civil logistics and depots of such supplies can be martialed by force if required. This entire exercise, if crowd sourced, can cover Pakistan in two weeks or thereabouts. Deliveries can be started in one to two days in without waiting for the overall exercise to complete.
Once these lowest distribution points are established these rations can be delivered through the store employees and mobile-vendors, thereby creating a second tier benefit of employment continuity through food-for-work or cash-for-work options for these delivery agents. These delivery agents can be supplemented through army and other civil agencies lead and coordinated through a single entity throughout Pakistan (also read https://empowerpakistanbyazd.blog/2020/03/27/pakistan-needs-a-single-situation-and-reaction-room-for-convid-19-why-no-war-footing/). We can also request the National Incubation Centers and the Digital Pakistan effort to attempt technological innovations to supplement these delivery agents and this overall approach.
