Boston Consulting Group was paid greater than $1mn for work with a personal US firm attempting to maneuver meals into Gaza by sea, over the identical interval it started a controversial affiliation with the Gaza Humanitarian Basis, the Monetary Occasions has discovered.
A group from the consulting agency labored with Fogbow, an assist supply group led by US navy veterans, on a Qatar-funded challenge that aimed to sail humanitarian assist on barges into Gaza from Cyprus, in line with folks conversant in the work.
Particulars of the task point out that BCG was keen to ally itself with a number of non-public sector efforts to supply aid to Gaza exterior the standard UN-led system, an method assist teams argue dangers undermining humanitarian ideas by introducing business issues.
After an preliminary interval offering professional bono recommendation, BCG went on to invoice the Geneva-based Maritime Humanitarian Assist Basis greater than $1mn for the work aiding Fogbow between March 2024 and February this yr, the folks mentioned.
MHAF was designed by Fogbow’s founders to behave as a conduit for worldwide funding for its plans, together with tens of hundreds of thousands of {dollars} dedicated by the federal government of Qatar. BCG charged the inspiration a reduced charge, the folks mentioned.
Not like the GHF work that was led by companions from the agency’s US defence follow, the Fogbow challenge was led by BCG companions from Europe, together with from the agency’s humanitarian response follow.
It included serving to arrange an MHAF entity in Switzerland, compiling month-to-month reviews that have been shared with the federal government of Qatar, and different administrative duties for the inspiration, in line with folks conversant in the challenge.
“In spring 2024, BCG was engaged by the Maritime Humanitarian Assist Basis to help the inspiration’s early improvement,” the consulting agency mentioned in an announcement.
“This engagement adopted BCG’s consumer acceptance procedures. The challenge was topic to our strong inside oversight course of, together with inside evaluate panels and real-time analysis.”
The consulting agency is going through a reputational disaster because of revelations about its different Gaza-related work, serving to to arrange and supply operational recommendation to the GHF, which ran from October 2024 till BCG bosses shut down the challenge in Could.
The FT revealed earlier this month that the challenge prolonged to modelling a postwar Gaza and the prices of relocating lots of of 1000’s of Palestinians from the shattered enclave.
BCG fired the 2 US companions that led the GHF work, saying they ignored approval processes and disobeyed an order to not do the postwar modelling work. This week the agency stripped two senior executives, together with its chief threat officer, of their management roles.
Fogbow’s plan was conceived earlier within the conflict in Gaza and was an try to create a maritime hall from Cyprus to Gaza, an idea backed by the EU and others as a method to beat boundaries Israel had positioned on the entry of assist.
Israel had throttled the entry of assist from a UN-led system on conventional land routes, claiming that it was being stolen by Hamas. On the similar time far-right ministers advocated using assist as leverage within the battle.
Fogbow’s group, which included former US diplomats and navy officers, had leveraged their connections within the US and Israeli governments, and several other Gulf nations, to obtain a minimum of some approvals from the Israeli authorities to arrange the maritime hall, two folks conversant in the matter mentioned.
The help would have been scanned for weapons in Cyprus and transported on barges to some extent on the Gaza shoreline, which might have been dredged to permit the barges to unload the provides.
The plans have been in the end overtaken by an announcement by President Joe Biden that the US navy was going to construct a floating pier on the Gaza shoreline to move assist from Cyprus beginning in Could 2024.
“We fed folks, and we’re nonetheless attempting to feed folks. It’s laborious, laborious work, you recognize?,” mentioned Cameron Hume, the manager director of MHAF, and former US Ambassador to Algeria, South Africa and Indonesia. “We do that by partnering with trusted humanitarian organisations and by working with logistics consultants like Fogbow and others.”
Fogbow in the end despatched about 200 tons of assist into Gaza by way of the pier, and about 900 tons by the Israeli port of Ashdod and on the identical land routes it had sought to keep away from.
The US pier broke aside a number of instances within the Mediterranean waves, and was mothballed after lower than a month of operations.
BCG employees supported MHAF “administratively and strategically”, in line with an individual conversant in the work. It helped set standards that MHAF ought to use to judge contractors, together with whether or not Fogbow ought to be changed, and suggested on the hiring of basis workers.
Because the maritime assist challenge was overtaken by the US pier, BCG employees additionally participated in workshops to debate how the inspiration would possibly increase its work past Gaza, the particular person mentioned.
Two folks conversant in Fogbow’s plans mentioned that at no level did Fogbow or BCG contemplate using non-public navy contractors or the relocation of Palestinians.
Fogbow and MHAF say that their shipments offered greater than 10mn meals in Gaza at a time when Palestinians have been going through disaster ranges of starvation, and that it has additionally subsequently offered important aid in Sudan and South Sudan.
The US and Israel have backed the GHF as the simplest technique to carry assist into Gaza, but it surely did not safe wider multilateral help and has been condemned by the UN as a “fig leaf” for Israeli conflict goals. Its launch has been marred by the deaths of lots of of Gazans, who’ve come below fireplace from Israeli troopers on the journey to assist distribution websites operated by its non-public safety contractors.
BCG pulled out of a $4mn contract for GHF on the finish of Could, saying it won’t now take fee.
GHF mentioned it had delivered practically 70mn meals on to the folks of Gaza and accused the consulting agency of “company cowardice” for distancing itself.
“Beneath stress from the UN and affiliated establishments . . . BCG deserted a mission they as soon as supported as a result of it began to impression their backside line,” it mentioned In a social media submit on Friday.
BCG declined to reply.
