Article: A collaborative approach to addressing motorcycle safety in Kenya

As Transaid continues to implement a project to establish a National Helmet Wearing Coalition in Kenya, funded by global road safety philanthropy the FIA Foundation, one thing that has become clear is the complexity of the determining factors linked to motorcycle safety.

The National Helmet Wearing Coalition currently comprises representatives from 17 different organisations including government, civil society, academia, private sector and rider associations. The Coalition has identified the urgent need for stronger enforcement to save lives on Kenya’s roads, and plans to support this objective in a number of ways.

The collective voice that a coalition of organisations and agencies offers is definitely a strength when it comes to instigating positive change, as is the pool of expertise that member organisations from various sectors bring to this particular Coalition. Indeed, there are challenges, not least building relationships and understanding the dynamics between members, but this approach is vital particularly where complex issues such as those influencing motorcycle rider safety are concerned.

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Journal article: The lived experiences of women workers in Africa’s transport sector: Reflections from Abuja, Cape Town and Tunis

This paper draws on ethnographic research conducted 2019–2022 in three quite diverse city regions – Abuja, Cape Town and Tunis – to understand women’s lived experiences of work in the road transport sector.  The strength of connection between male identity and motor-mobility in Africa is ubiquitous and has rarely been questioned by transport sector actors. Women are still largely absent from the story, constrained at least partly by hegemonic norms of femininity and an ‘affective atmosphere’ that deters female entry. However, there are occasional cases across Africa where women have dared to disrupt this masculinist enterprise, either as employees or entrepreneurs.

This study explores and compares women transport workers’ everyday experiences, drawing principally on in-depth interviews with those in customer-facing roles (taxi and bus drivers, bus conductors). Relevant public sector organisations and major transport employers were also consulted, while focus groups with community groups of men and women explored their attitudes to women employed as transport workers, and with school-girls investigated their career aspirations and views regarding employment in the sector. A final section looks to the future, post-COVID-19. Although new opportunities occasionally emerge for women, they need much more support, not only in terms of skills training, but also through flexible working opportunities, union recognition and action, microfinance and financial management training. This support is essential in order to expand the visibility of women transport workers and thus make the wider transport milieu less overwhelmingly male and more welcoming to women transport users.

Building Resilience in the Health Supply Chain to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic

Since Zambia recorded its first confirmed COVID-19 case in March 2020, the transport and logistics industry has been under increasing pressure to maintain supply chains of essential goods and medicines across the country. Regional travel restrictions and border testing regimes, introduced to slow the spread of the virus, have disrupted the movement of health commodity cargo, leaving land-locked countries such as Zambia particularly vulnerable to commodity shortages and stock outs. There is growing concern that further disruption to vital supply chains would seriously undermine Zambia’s ability to maintain the distribution of essential medicines across the county whilst in parallel mounting a coordinated response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

In order to protect key workers, Transaid in partnership with the Industrial Training Centre (ITC), and supported by the Zambia Ministry of Health and UK industry, developed a communicable diseases training manual with a focus on COVID-19 awareness and preparedness. Transaid then conducted a Training of Trainers (ToT) programmes to equip ITC trainers with the skills required to deliver the COVID-19 training, and between September 2020 and February 2022, ITC trainers delivered the training to professional drivers and warehouse colleagues working in Zambia’s central and regional medical stores.

A total 101 health supply chain colleagues received the training and 120 packages of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) were handed out. In addition, 2,158 printed factsheets were distributed and a further ~4,000 professional drivers received digital copies via the WhatsApp messaging platform.

Please click below to download the full technical brief.

Literature Review: An Investigation into the Impact on Social Inclusion of High Volume Transport Corridors and Potential Solutions to Identifying and Preventing Human Trafficking

This report presents a literature review and annotated bibliography undertaken as part of the research project: An Investigation into the Impact on Social Inclusion of High Volume Traffic (HVT) Corridors, and Potential Solutions to Identifying and Preventing Human Trafficking. The literature review followed the core principles of a systematic literature review process. The review found that very little is known about the relationship between Trafficking in Persons (TIP) and HVT corridors, other major trade routes and border crossings along these routes. It also found that the role of transport sector operators within the human trafficking process is not well understood. This validates the choice of research topic and confirms the need to strengthen the evidence base on these issues.

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MAM@Scale COVID-19 Response: Gender Based Violence Poster

Since the COVID-19 outbreak, many have faced unprecedented challenges around the world. Like many organisations, Transaid has been adapting and finding new ways of working, and making sure that all staff, consultants and volunteers are protected and safe. Consequently, Transaid has been working to introduce new protocols and ways of working for our colleagues in the field.

As part of this, Transaid have been focusing on awareness raising, establishing hand washing stations and topping up the community food banks as part of the preparedness planning in the MAM@Scale intervention sites in Zambia. This also included the development of materials aimed at supporting awareness raising activities, and to ensure that the people on the frontline of project operations, as well as the people they are supporting, are safe and protected at all times.

The stresses and strains of the pandemic have led to an increase of Gender Based Violence (GBV) reported in communities. MAM@Scale COVID-19 Response has therefore begun to incorporate a GBV campaign in its activities.

Click below to view the Gender Based Violence Poster in English and Bemba.

MAM@Scale COVID-19 Response: Revised RAS Protocol

Since the Covid-19 outbreak, many have faced unprecedented challenges around the world. Like many organisations, Transaid has been adapting and finding new ways of working, and making sure that all staff, consultants and volunteers are protected and safe. Consequently, Transaid has been working to introduce new protocols and ways of working for our colleagues in the field.

As part of this, Transaid have been focusing on awareness raising, establishing hand washing stations and topping up the community food banks as part of the preparedness planning in the MAM@Scale intervention sites in Zambia. This also included the development of materials aimed at supporting awareness raising activities, and to ensure that the people on the frontline of project operations, as well as the people they are supporting, are safe and protected at all times.

Please click below to view the updated rectal artesunate (RAS) protocols for Community Health Volunteers (CHVs), in English, Chewa, Senga, and Luvale.

MAM@Scale COVID-19 Response: Signs and Symptoms Poster

Since the COVID-19 outbreak, many have faced unprecedented challenges around the world. Like many organisations, Transaid has been adapting and finding new ways of working, and making sure that all staff, consultants and volunteers are protected and safe. Consequently, Transaid has been working to introduce new protocols and ways of working for our colleagues in the field.

As part of this, Transaid have been focusing on awareness raising, establishing hand washing stations and topping up the community food banks as part of the preparedness planning in the MAM@Scale intervention sites in Zambia. This also included the development of materials aimed at supporting awareness raising activities, and to ensure that the people on the frontline of project operations, as well as the people they are supporting, are safe and protected at all times.

Please click below to see the “Signs, Symptoms and Response” Posters in English, Bemba, Chewa, Senga, and Luvale.

MAM@Scale COVID-19 Response: Prevention Poster

Since the COVID-19 outbreak, many have faced unprecedented challenges around the world. Like many organisations, Transaid has been adapting and finding new ways of working, and making sure that all staff, consultants and volunteers are protected and safe. Consequently, Transaid has been working to introduce new protocols and ways of working for our colleagues in the field.

As part of this, Transaid have been focusing on awareness raising, establishing hand washing stations and topping up the community food banks as part of the preparedness planning in the MAM@Scale intervention sites in Zambia. This also included the development of materials aimed at supporting awareness raising activities, and to ensure that the people on the frontline of project operations, as well as the people they are supporting, are safe and protected at all times.

Please click below to see the “COVID-19 Prevention Poster”,  in English, Bemba, Chewa, Senga, and Luvale.

MAM@Scale COVID-19 Response: Revised ETS Protocol

Since the COVID-19 outbreak, many have faced unprecedented challenges around the world. Like many organisations, Transaid has been adapting and finding new ways of working, and making sure that all staff, consultants and volunteers are protected and safe. Consequently, Transaid has been working to introduce new protocols and ways of working for our colleagues in the field.

As part of this, Transaid have been focusing on awareness raising, establishing hand washing stations and topping up the community food banks as part of the preparedness planning in the MAM@Scale intervention sites in Zambia. This also included the development of materials aimed at supporting awareness raising activities, and to ensure that the people on the frontline of project operations, as well as the people they are supporting, are safe and protected at all times.

Please click below to see the Revised ETS Rider Protocol During COVID-19 Pandemic, in both English and Senga.

WHO Bulletin: Use of rectal artesunate for severe malaria at the community level, Zambia

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has reported on a Transaid project in Zambia, which has helped to dramatically reduce severe malaria mortality in children under six years of age, as being “feasible, safe and effective in hard-to-reach communities”. In this official report, the WHO research bulletin identifies the project’s approach – which included a bicycle ambulance system implemented by Transaid – as being highly adaptable, stating it “could be used in other countries with a high malaria burden”.

Zambia’s Health Minister, Dr Chitalu Chilufya, has also praised the success of the pilot. Speaking during the Global Fund’s Sixth Replenishment Conference in Lyon, France, attended by heads of state, heads of government, philanthropists and NGOs, he reinforced the need for partnership to ensure that pre-referral anti-malarial treatments could be financed and rolled out at national level.

Malaria is a life-threatening disease caused by parasites that are transmitted to people through the bites of infected female Anopheles mosquitoes; and is highly prevalent in young children. Despite it being preventable and curable, the WHO African Region carries a disproportionately high share of the global malaria burden – being home to 92 per cent of malaria cases and 93 per cent of malaria deaths in 2017.

Transaid worked on the initial pilot project (MAMaZ Against Malaria) in Serenje District with Medicines for Malaria Venture (MMV) between 2017 and 2018, in collaboration with a consortium of partners which included DAI Global Health (formally Health Partners International), Development Data, Disacare, the Zambian National Malaria Elimination Centre and District Health Management Team. Following its success, this year Transaid became part of a scale-up programme, securing matched funding from Grand Challenges Canada and the Government of Canada to enable the initial project to quadruple in size, potentially benefiting as many as 250,000 people in rural Zambia by the end of 2020.

The WHO research focused on a 12-month period during the pilot, using data from three sources including surveys carried out near the beginning and end of the intervention period, health facilities contributing data on malaria to the Zambia Health Management Information System and a community monitoring system. It also collected qualitative data via case studies, feedback from government officials and reports of informal discussions with community health volunteers and communities.

In the year before the intervention, 18 deaths occurred in 224 cases of confirmed severe malaria among children younger than five years of age seen at intervention health facilities (case fatality rate: 8%). During the intervention, three out of 619 comparable children with severe malaria died (case fatality rate: 0.5%).

To read the full report, please click below.

Developing innovative approaches to increase rural access to commodities for the case management of severe malaria in Zambia: Final Project Report (August 2018)

This final report presents the key results from the MAMaZ Against Malaria (MAM) project which was established in July 2017.

MAMaZ against Malaria is a one year pilot project, funded by the Geneva-based foundation, Medicines for Malaria Venture (MMV). The project aims to devise an evidence-based and sustainable strategy to improve the access of hard-to-reach communities to effective treatment for severe malaria (SM) in a high malaria burden setting.

The project is being implemented by a consortium led by Transaid in partnership with Health Partners Zambia, Development Data and Disacare. The consortium is working in partnership with the Ministry of Health in Zambia, specifically the National Malaria Elimination Centre, and the District Health Management Team for Serenje District.

To read this report, please click below.

Health Facility Study Report – Adamawa State Emergency Transport Scheme (ETS) Programme

The Comic Relief funded Emergency Transport Scheme (ETS) programme ran in Adamawa State, North East Nigeria, for a five-year period between 2013 and 2018. It focused on reducing the health care access gap for pregnant women in rural communities during delivery or maternal complications, through safe and affordable transport.

Given the limited evidence-based guidance for practitioners and policy-makers in both the health and transport sectors on how best to reduce the negative impact of lack of transport on Africa’s high maternal mortality rates, there is scope for this report to add to global learning and inform decision-makers.

The Adamawa State ETS programme Health Facility Study Report outlines the findings from an investigation to determine if and how the use of ETS correlates to a woman’s health condition upon arrival at a health facility during delivery or a maternal complication.

To read this report, please click below.