Transaid tackles HIV Awareness among drivers in Zambia
On May 27th Transaid presented a paper at the Country Consultation on HIV in the Transport Sector in Zambia arranged by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM). The paper entitled “The Role of Regionally Harmonised Driver Training Standards in Supporting Initiatives to Combat the Spread of HIV in the Transport Sector” detailed the need for agreed driver training standards in the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC), not only to reduce the enormous death tolls currently experienced due to road crashes but also as a vehicle for delivering standardised HIV/Aids education to drivers.
Transaid was also pleased to facilitate IOM in arranging the country consultation through linking IOM representatives with key national and international transport sector stakeholders, whose attendance at the meeting was vital for mapping the way forward. Katy Barwise, IOM Project Officer for the Partnership on HIV and Mobility in Southern Africa (PHAMSA) commented,
“Transaid’s understanding of, and links with the transport industry, not only in Zambia but throughout the region, were of great value for helping us to pull together the key representatives without whom this meeting would not have been possible”. You can find out more about IOM at www.iom.org.za
The importance of HIV education for driver training and road safety
The development of regionally harmonised driver training standards offers a significant opportunity to promote HIV/Aids education for drivers at an early stage in their career. The current focus on road traffic crashes as a global health crisis is bringing resources to bear on the issue. At the same time the development of driver training curricula as a key strategy to alleviate the road safety problem provides a vehicle for the integrated delivery of HIV/Aids education to drivers. Systemic and integrated HIV/Aids education within driver training curricula can be a reality.
Through Transaid’s work in Southern Africa a number of opportunities have arisen to have honest and frank conversations with transport operators. In Namibia transport operators explained that they could double their vehicle fleet if not for the shortage of drivers; an issue which they partly attributed to the HIV epidemic.
In South Africa senior transport industry representatives explained that the government had left it too late to respond to the driver shortage and was being forced to introduce and subsidise a “crash course” for new drivers to rapidly increase the numbers. Once again it was explained that the industry felt that HIV/Aids was a significant contributing factor towards the loss of existing drivers.
In Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, a transport operator pointed to ten trucks standing in his yard and suggested “if you want a visual representation for the impact of aids upon driver numbers in Tanzania there it is, those are new trucks for which I have not found drivers”; hiding little about this individual’s beliefs regarding the reason for driver shortages.
The Way Forward
Pressure must be applied to the appropriate national and regional bodies to promote the development of regionally harmonized driver training standards in specific relation to:
The development of agreed standards and materials for driver training.
The development of “sector specific” HIV/Aids content to be inserted into all driver training curricula.
Agreement between all member states to achieve the mission of the 1996 SADC Protocol on Transport, Communications and Meteorology in the Southern African Development Community and implement a harmonized driver training standards program.
Ultimately the aim should be to achieve systemic and integrated HIV/Aids education for drivers as part of vocational training.
Since 2001 Transaid has been working mainly in Zambia but also in a number of other SADC countries to introduce regionally harmonized driver training standards.
