About Transaid

Transaid is an international development charity that seeks to reduce poverty and improve quality of life through providing better access to essential services such as healthcare, education and economic opportunities in Africa and across the developing world. By working with the European transport and logistics industry, Transaid builds local skills and knowledge within the transport sector to make transport cheaper, safer, cleaner and more effective.

Transaid was founded by Save the Children and the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport (CILT), under the patronage of HRH The Princess Royal.

Why we exist

Transport is essential for life and for the achievement of the Millenium Development goals which aim to halve world poverty by 2015. However, the reality for many of the poorest people in Africa and across the developing world is that access to transport is poor, inadequate, unavailable or non-existent.

Lack of transport denies people access to their basic needs such as healthcare, education and can also impact on their ability to work, all of which are a human right. The consequences of unsafe, inefficient transport lead to lives lost. Traditionally international aid spent on transport goes towards improving infrastructure but little money is allocated for management and skills training to enable transport to work effectively. Many development projects fail due to lack of attention to transport and the failure to prioritise budgets accordingly.

Transaid recognises that transport knowledge is absolutely essential to the smooth running of any project involving movement of goods or people and we seek to advocate and tackle this need from the grassroots to the policy level.

Our Expertise

Transaid currently has three main areas of expertise:

1.Efficient vehicle management We work with departments of health, governments and other organisations to improve the management and maintenance of their vehicle fleets. We do this by applying the Transaid Transport Management System to reduce costs, improve service delivery and increase operational efficiency.

2. Appropriate technologies to access essential services We provide access to appropriate, alternative forms of transport for communities where conventional forms of transport are not available e.g. bicycle and motorcycle ambulances. These life-saving technologies enable men, women and children in rural communities to reach health services when they are most in need.

3. Driver competence and safety standards We promote professional driver training standards and develop driver training programmes to improve road safety and the efficient use of vehicles.

Our Current Projects

We work in West, East and Southern Africa and have also conducted projects in parts of Asia.

Our most recent project (which benefits greatly from donations) is our Professional Driver Training project in Zambia. In Zambia there is a huge shortage of quality trained HGV drivers. As a result road accidents occur daily, often with devastating consequences for poor families when the income of a breadwinner is lost due to death or injury, road related deaths are the 3rd highest cause of premature death in Africa after HIV/Aids and Malaria. The essence of this project is to ultimately reduce the number of crashes and deaths on the road through training these drivers to be responsible and efficient, and capable of maintaining their vehicles effectively and safely.

Our project in Northern Nigeria is working to reduce child and maternal mortality by improving access to healthcare for women and children. This project includes the development of an emergency transport system to get pregnant women from remote, rural areas to hospital in time so that they receive professional care when giving birth. Women in Sub-Saharan Africa continue to face a 1 in 13 chance of dying from pregnancy and childbirth, when the risk for women in the industrialized world is only 1 in 4,085. The project also aims to increase access to vaccinations against preventable diseases for children who would otherwise go without.

Our history

In 1987, HRH The Princess Royal (Patron of Save the Children Fund and then President of the Chartered Institute of Transport) proposed the UK transport industry should meet the transport and logistical challenges faced by Save the Children Fund in implementing its relief and development projects. This led to the first incarnation of Transaid, as part of the Save the Children Fund.

Transaid's first major project took place in Ghana with the Ministry of Health from 1993 to 1996. This saw the training of transport officers and managers, and the design and implementation of the Transaid Transport Management System (TMS), which is still going strong.

The TMS seeks to integrate the planning of health service delivery with transport planning, involving all professions at all levels within the health service. The system covers the development of transport policy, the management of vehicle fleets and their operation for health service delivery, and the collection and analysis of basic management information, which allows close monitoring of the performance of vehicles and personnel.

The TMS has evolved as a practical, user-friendly model to be replicated elsewhere (modified to suit the local context). We seek to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the use of transport resources, thereby improving physical access to health services and making significant cost savings.

The Ghana project led to spin-offs on a smaller scale in Eritrea, the Gambia and Pakistan before being taken up as a major intervention in South Africa.

The first project covered two provinces but this was expanded to a further five and the project extended to July 2002. As well as the training and development of the TMS in South Africa, Transaid was also able to develop a vocational qualification (VQ) at the equivalent of a UK NVQ level 3.

The project extension was to disseminate lessons and raise further awareness and commitment to the VQ processes. The Certificate in Transport Management is to be further established within the Department of Health with a two-year project to start July 2002.

Meanwhile, the European Commission engaged Transaid to deliver the TMS to the Ministry of Health and Population in Malawi under their Health Sector Reform and Decentralisation Project.

Including these major projects, Transaid has completed 70 projects, mostly in Africa, ranging from two weeks to 5 years in length. There are about 30 projects of one form or another and in various stages currently active.

Transaid seeks to collaborate with local partners, government or NGO, to build capacity and develop appropriate transport management systems. It hopes to learn from its projects and share the benefits with colleagues overseas - hence new project work in Ghana to introduce the VQ to the Ministry of Health.

Transaid has worked to improve its methodology, evidenced by its new Transport Management Handbook that complements the training inputs and the development of training materials for trainers in transport management.