Lynn C. Fritz Medal for Excellence in Humanitarian Logistics 2025 goes to Germany for the first time
Welthungerhilfe (WHH) is being honored for its Emergency Supplies Prepositioning Strategy (ESUPS) project, which is leading to a fundamental improvement in the prepositioning strategies for emergency supplies in disaster areas. Those responsible will receive the medal at the Logistics Hall of Fame gala reception in Berlin on December 4.
Ismaning near Munich/Berlin, September 12, 2025 Welthungerhilfe (WHH) will be awarded the Lynn C. Fritz Medal for Excellence in Humanitarian Logistics this year. The medal, which has been awarded by the Logistics Hall of Fame since 2023 and is sponsored by the US-based Fritz Institute, is going to Germany for the first time. Previous winners were, International Medical Corps, an American non-governmental organization focused on health issues, and Strategies for Northern Development, a local humanitarian organization based in Kenya.
The international award recognizes the Bonn-based humanitarian organization for its pioneering project “Emergency Supplies Prepositioning Strategy (ESUPS),” which has been running since 2019 and improves national strategies for prepositioning relief items in disaster regions. At the heart of the project is the digital platform STOCKHOLM (STOCK of Humanitarian Organisation Logistics Mapping). It enables logistics experts worldwide to record and analyze stocks of various relief supplies and make precise recommendations as to which items should be kept in which quantities at which locations.
The impact is tangible: ESUPS ensures greater visibility and easier cooperation between governments, humanitarian organizations, and United Nations agencies to shorten response times, make operations more efficient, and reduce the costs of warehousing and disposing of surplus goods. This is particularly significant for localization where many local partners, such as national disaster relief organizations, can use this platform to visualize stock data and get an overview of what they have nationally. At the same time, they know what is available regionally and internationally.
A three-person team from WHH is running the project. The steering group includes representatives from Action Contre la Faim, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, the International Organization for Migration (IOM), Save the Children International, the United Nations Humanitarian Response Depot (UNHRD), Welthungerhilfe (WHH), and World Vision. The mathematical model for the inventory analyses was developed by international scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Penn State University, among others.
The project has benefited from a diverse funding base to ensure its sustainability. When the original donor, the US Agency for International Development (USAID) was no longer available, WHH placed ESUPS on three new financial pillars: Firstly, WHH contributes funds from its own donations. Secondly, funds are provided by the European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations (ECHO), the European Commission's humanitarian aid organization, and a private donor. Currently, funding for the project is secured until June 2027. “Many lives would have been at risk if the project had died after the closing of USAID,” emphasizes Mathias Mogge, Secretary General of WHH.
The 15-member international jury selected the project from among all the entries because it is an “innovative pioneering project that enables genuine collaboration between all stakeholders and serves as a role model for the entire humanitarian aid sector,” according to the jury's statement. "Because stakeholders rarely communicated with each other about global, regional, and national supplies in the past, national authorities were poorly informed about the relief supplies stored in their country. This led to either overstocking or insufficient quantities of items. This problem was solved in an exemplary manner with the help of ESUPS. The communication strategy, which led to the rapid connection of numerous actors, can also serve as a model for others: Today, 127 actors exchange data on stocks from nearly 800 logistics experts in 60 countries, paving the way for the establishment of coordinated preparedness strategies," emphasizes Thilo Jörgl, jury chairperson of the Lynn C. Fritz Medal.
On December 4, representatives of WHH will present the results of ESUPS at the Bertelsmann Repraesentanz in Berlin. On this day, the third edition of “ConnectChains – The Humanitarian Supply Chain Conference” will take place there. International experts from business, science, aid organizations, and the United Nations will travel to this summit. On the same day in the evening, Lynn C. Fritz, CEO of the sponsor Fritz Institute, will present the medal to the winner at the Logistics Hall of Fame gala reception in Berlin.
The Logistics Hall of Fame is accessible free of charge at any time at www.logisticshalloffame.net and offers information and pictures about the Lynn C. Fritz Medal. It also documents the most important milestones in logistics and its pioneers.
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About Welthungerhilfe (WHH): WHH, based in Bonn, is one of the largest private aid organizations in Germany. It is politically and religiously independent. More than 3,300 employees in 92 countries are committed to a world without hunger. Since its foundation in 1962, it has funded 12,777 projects in around 72 countries and regions with 5.42 billion euros. WHH works according to the basic principle of helping people to help themselves: from rapid disaster relief and reconstruction to long-term development cooperation projects with national and international partner organizations.
About Logistics Hall of Fame: The Logistics Hall of Fame honors international personalities who have made an outstanding contribution to the further development of logistics and supply chain management. The goal of the Logistics Hall of Fame is to serve as a global platform for documenting the milestones of logistics and honoring its movers and shakers, thus underscoring the importance of logistics for business and society. The Logistics Hall of Fame also presents the Logistics Leader of the Year Award to current pacesetters in logistics. The donor is STILL GmbH. In addition, the Logistics Hall of Fame recognizes innovative logistics projects by humanitarian organizations with the Lynn C. Fritz Medal for Excellence in Humanitarian Logistics. The sponsor is the Fritz Institute. The non-profit initiative is supported by politics, associations, media, business and science. Patrick Schnieder, the German Federal Minister of Transport, is the patron.
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