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Our regional base is Accra in Ghana, which has a special place in Transaid’s history. It was through work with the Ghanaian Ministry of Health from 1992 to 1999 that Transaid developed the Transport Management System that forms the core of its work. Through Transaid, Ghanaian professionals who were previously part of that project now travel all over Africa to share their skills and knowledge. For example Saaka Dumba, Head of Transport Policy for the Ministry of Health in Ghana, who was involved in the original development of the System, has this year trained others in its implementation in Kenya.  Davis Commey from the MoH in Ghana managed the initial assessment of the MoH's fleet in Sierra Leone and we anticipate that this will be followed up by a full transport management  programme in 2007.

 

Elsewhere in West Africa, In Jigawa State in Northern Nigeria, Transaid has contributed to a UK government funded project on the improvement of health delivery systems, particularly to an Emergency Transport System aimed at pregnant women. The result has been a series of interventions involving the training of trainers of the drivers and motorcycle riders who operate taxi services in the area and volunteer their services to take patients to get help in emergencies. It has also led to the design of an ambulance trailer that can be towed safely by a motorcycle. 

 

Also in Northern Nigeria, we will be part of a group working on the Reviving Routine Immunisation project in Northern Nigeria to reduce deaths from vaccine preventable diseases, which currently kill 22% of Nigerian children who die before the age of 5. These deaths could be avoided but, currently, less than 10% of infants in the region are immunised against diseases like TB, diphtheria, tetanus, polio and measles. Transaid will work alongside healthcare partners to address some of the transportation issues that prevent vaccines being available – the most common reason given by mothers for not having their children immunised - by implementing its Transport Management System. By 2010, it is estimated that this UK Department for International Development funded project will raise the immunisation rate to 60% and directly save about 30,000 children’s lives a year.  

 

In Ghana, plans include a project to help women market traders in Accra to own and operate their own transport fleet, and another to enable  Kintampo Rural Health Training School to develop transport management's place in the basic training curriculum of all rural health workers. In the longer term, I aim to look at the application of Transaid’s Transport Management System for small scale operators and to develop professional commercial driving standards, improving opportunities to trade and making commercial driving a safe and respectable way to make a living. 

 

There are also plans to work on an educational campaign with the National Road Safety Commission in Ghana to make road transport safer for all road users.

 

You can read more about past and present projects in West Africa below, and please feel free to contact me with any questions.