On behalf of the World Bank a study was conducted as part of this research project to provide a global overview on logistics competences, skills and training. Based on a global survey the research provides strong evidence for a global shortage of qualified logistics personnel on all occupational levels. The problem is most acute in emerging regions. To solve the skills shortage, the study provides numerous recommendations to the various stakeholder groups, i.e. governments, companies, logistics associations, and educational institutions , to get access to talent and to facilitate the “upskilling” of logistics labor through training and development. Those include facilitation of multi-stakeholder collaboration, updating of outdated university curricula, application of blended learning approaches, and creation of more appealing working environments for operative logistics staff.

Reliable food supply is a basic human need. In order to meet this, an efficient risk management for the prevention of food supply shortfalls is required by public authorities and private enterprises. The objective of this research project (SEAK, funded by the German Federal Ministry for Research and Education) is to support this by developing decision-support systems to analyze different scenarios of food supply shortfalls in Germany. One of the main outcomes is a macroscopic dynamic commodity flow model that describes the supply of food on a regional level. This can be used to determine the vulnerability of regions in food supply.