The United Nations World Food Program (WFP) has partnered with the taxi app Uber to deliver relief supplies to urban areas in Ukraine. Because of the war, they are sometimes difficult to reach large trucks.

The WFP uses a special version of the technology platform that Uber uses to deploy cars and vans within 100 kilometres of WFP warehouses to distribution points. With this system, everyone involved can see where the vehicles are and when the relief supplies will arrive at their destination.

Aid supplies are already being distributed in this way in cities such as Kyiv, Dnipro, Lviv, Vinnitsja and Chernivtsi, the UN agency reports. According to the emergency coordinator in Ukraine, the free technology offered by Uber improves cooperation between WFP and local companies, making distribution more efficient.

The WFP has been scaling up its activities in and around Ukraine over the past three months. The organization aims to provide food and money to more than 3 million people a month in the country by the end of June.