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No internationally recognised professional driving standards apply across any borders in Southern Africa. Poor driving skills have a negative impact on fuel efficiency and wear and tear on the vehicle. These are major factors in the high cost of operating or contracting transport, which makes the movement of goods to market difficult for producers. Low skilled drivers also contribute to unacceptably high road death and injury rates in these countries.

The Process

The governments of Zambia and Malawi have developed with Transaid a set of professional driving standards to improve the efficiency and driving safety in the transport sector. An agreement has been reached to use transport industry best practice from the UK, including NVQ qualifications for Large Goods Vehicles, and adapt them to the local context.

As the means to achieve these standards Transaid is currently working with the Zambian Logistics and Transport Sector Training Advisory Committee (LTSTAC) and is assisting in the development of an appropriate curriculum. This localised version will be based on the curriculum developed by SADC (Southern African Development Community), supplemented by other recognised curricula.

In addition to the development of the curriculum Transaid is focusing on training existing trainers and training staff from the Zambian Road Transport and Safety Agency (RTSA) and Malawian National Road Safety Council (NRSC) to enable them to disseminate the new curriculum to the various training establishments which will be responsible for training the public.

Once these mechanisms are in place Transaid will help government authorities create a system to monitor the quality of training in the driving schools and to set up a registry trained drivers. The overall process will be supported by the development of legislation in Malawi and Zambia that will oblige professional drivers to undergo training to this standard in order to obtain a driving license, or to retrain if they already hold professional licenses.

SADC and COMESA (Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa) are activelly supporting the work in Zambia and Malawi with the intention to expand it into the SADC and COMESA regions if successful.

The Partners

Technical, Entrepreneurial, and Vocational Education and Training Authority (TEVETA) Malawi; TEVETA Zambia; The Industrial Training Centre, Lusaka; Christian Salvesen; Exel/DHL Logistics; The Exel Foundation

The training has been supported by MAN ERF (UK) through the donation of a training vehicle to the Industrial Training Centre in Lusaka, Zambia.  This was shipped free of charge from UK to Zambia by NYK Logistics. Turnpan (Zambia) have agreed to maintain the vehicle free of charge for three years. 

The Result

The Level 2 Standard for Professional Drivers, which is recognised in both Malawi and Zambia, has been established. This was achieved in 2005 with the technical input of Paul Dorling, one of Christian Salvesen’s master trainers. Paul worked with representatives from the technical and vocational associations of Zambia and Malawi and trainers from the national vocational training authority to develop the 11 components, covering all the tasks to be covered by a driver.  This comprises the Standard.

The process of training trainers began with training from David Doig (then working for TNT) and has been continued by the Exel/DHL Logistic trainers Alan Warnock and Adam Shearman.

The Impact

When a critical mass of commercial drivers have qualified the project will create better livelihoods opportunities for drivers and lower the cost of operating commercial transport. Ultimately, it is hoped, the cost of everyday goods and services will fall and their availability will increase.  Transaid intends to scale up the project and apply these standards across the SADC region – see “Developing Driver Vocational Training in the SADC Region”.