Delivering medical supplies with sustained UAV Operations in Malawi
THE QUESTION
Can a multi-purpose UAV operation in Malawi help realise the impact of UAVs in development and humanitarian contexts in a financially sustainable, long-term manner?
LOCATION| Malawi
SECTOR: Health
TECH: UAV
TIMELINE: January - November 2020
PIONEER: Sarah Pannell
PARTNERS: Swoop Aero, UNICEF Malawi
The Challenge
Malawi faces numerous development challenges, from droughts and floods, malaria epidemics, to crop pests. It is also one of the poorest countries in the world, with a majority rural population dependent on a once-a-year, rain fed harvest of maize. The Government of Malawi, in partnership with UNICEF Malawi, established a drone corridor in Malawi to enable the use of drones for humanitarian and development services. However, most UAV use cases remain at an early stage of scale and development and there is a lack of evidence on sustainable and scalable business operations using drones in humanitarian contexts.
The Idea
UNICEF Malawi, the Government of Malawi and its partners wanted to explore the feasibility, cost and benefit of a multi-purpose drone with the aim of providing better targeted support during disaster events. This pilot tested the assumption whether a multi-purpose drone operation was viable and could prove to be both a scalable and effective business model in development and humanitarian contexts.
The Journey
What we learned
Using drones to deliver medical supplies in Malawi proved to be useful to rural health centres, which was demonstrated by their reliance on the new UAV network.
We were unable to test the second use case–drone imagery mapping. Because of this, we were unable to fully test the hypothesis that a multi-purpose operation will lead to a financially sustainable operation.
The Covid-19 pandemic began during this pilot and caused many of the Swoop Aero employees to leave Malawi. While the team was successful in virtual piloting, the overall objective of localised operations will be that trained local staff can pilot UAVs in their own country. The pilot successfully trained several pilots who were able to fly the drones during the lockdown and deliver emergency Covid supplies.
All photos on this page were taken by the pilot’s implementing partners, Swoop Aero and UNICEF Malawi. Read more
Read about the uses of UAV in humanitarian aid — “Using drones to deliver critical humanitarian aid”