A comprehensive guide on how to boost port resilience in the face of adversity, like those that have beset the world over the last few years, has been issued by UNCTAD – a United Nations intergovernmental organization established to promote the interests of developing states in world trade.
UNCTAD noted that there are numerous potential supply chain stressors and these included economic crises, political events, natural disasters, cyber-security incidents, pandemics (COVID), and armed conflict.
“Port resilience is not only an imperative for supply chains, but also for the national economies they support… Ensuring the integrity and the well-functioning of maritime transportation is critical for all economies,” the UNCTAD says.
Noting that COVID and related restrictions have caused serious disruptions in ports, risks at the port level can multiply along supply chains. These risks include:
- shortages of materials
- blank sailings
- port closures
- reduced working hors
- equipment shortages
- labour shortages
- trucking capacity constraints
“This situation has put pressure on the integrity of global supply chains and has the potential to erode the benefits resulting from efforts made over the past decades and aimed at enhancing supply chain operations,” UNCTAD says.
Many case studies
The guidance looks at 23 ports under stress around the world at different times.
One such case study looked Los Angeles / Long Beach in the COVID pandemic, which was severely disrupted. That port complex experienced “massive logjams” that led to a global shortage of containers, the UNCTAD notes, with ripple effects cascading around the world.
“Delays in delivery times were observed across the board. Cost increases, rate increases, extended delays along supply chains, cancelled port calls (mostly in developing economies), and goods shortages have also been reported,” the UNCTAD notes.
Mitigation
The report looks at a variety of key mitigation and response measures and identified nine general areas including risk management, crisis management, contingency planning, hazmat reporting, cyber-resilience, improving infrastructure, improving superstructure, satellite facilities and traffic diversion.
UNCTAD notes that the “ultimate strategy” is to consider a complete traffic diversion if the ports is forced to close for a period because of severe disruption.
“Cargo can be diverted to other port(s) if the disruption is extensive and lasts longer (i.e. more than a week).
