Context

Critical points of entry, particularly airports and seaports, are essential lifelines during crises. They enable the rapid movement of humanitarian personnel, relief supplies, and emergency equipment, and are often among the first infrastructures to face pressure when disasters strike. While airports play a key role in rapid response and surge operations, seaports are equally critical for sustaining large-scale humanitarian relief, enabling the entry of heavy cargo, bulk supplies, and reconstruction materials over longer response and recovery phases. Sudden surges in traffic, damaged infrastructure, and coordination challenges at these facilities can quickly create bottlenecks that delay life-saving assistance and undermine national response efforts.

Strengthening the preparedness and operational readiness of airports and seaports is therefore a core component of national resilience. This requires long-term capacity building, risk-informed planning, and sustained coordination across government institutions, humanitarian actors, and the private sector. Public-private partnerships play a central role in this effort, acting as a critical engine for preparedness by combining public authority, operational expertise, innovation, and private sector assets to build durable, scalable, and locally owned readiness capacities. Drawing on lessons from initiatives such as the Get Airports Ready for Disaster (GARD) programme, a flagship public-private partnership between the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and DHL Group, this session will examine how partnership models, tools, and innovations can be applied across critical points of entry. The discussion will explore how airports and seaports can function as reliable humanitarian hubs in disaster-prone contexts and how preparedness efforts can be scaled and sustained, including through viable public-private partnerships.

Event Objectives

• Reinforce the importance of preparedness of critical points of entry as part of national resilience building efforts at the intersection of development and humanitarian imperatives.

• Highlight the role of public-private partnerships in building local and national preparedness capability in the long-term with a particular focus on critical points of entry – seaports and airports – likely to serve as humanitarian aid hubs in crisis response.

• Identify opportunities for regional and global cooperation, knowledge exchange, and innovation to enhance preparedness and interoperability among critical points of entry.