Government support and engagement (eg, ministries of health, defence, transport, including civil aviation authorities) are indispensable to implementation National, multisectoral stakeholder committees are important to guide and coordinate activities and raise awareness Value of community engagement and acceptance efforts has been demonstrated Drone-specific flight regulations have been developed in all countries in reaction to the increased use of drones (with varying current implementation status) Competitive tendering for drone operator has resulted in identification of most suitable technology Local human resources, skills and institutional capacity-building efforts contribute to locally owned and operated projects Favourable operating environments (eg, testing corridor in Malawi) have facilitated testing of new technologies by different users Feasibility testing resulted in first successful bi-directional flights and dummy cargo transports Accompanying studies (eg, acceptability, health outcomes, cost-effectiveness analyses) increased the body of evidence and lessons learnt to guide future implementation Standard operating procedures for drone operations have been developed Parallel use cases in other sectors, eg, agriculture, conservation, disaster response, have increased interest, advocacy, ease of implementation and acceptance of drone use and created synergies High international visibility was achieved bringing attention to the use case |
Lengthy and delayed development of drone regulations Limited in-country technical capacity Lengthy and costly importation of technology and equipment into country Need for technology switch mid-projects (technical challenges and unavailability from operating provider) Limited readiness of technology in real-world settings (eg, GPS interference) leading to need for technology development on site (software and hardware) Difficulty sourcing funding for activities beyond proof-of-concept or small-scale implementation Lack of business cases in-country, partly due to lack of implementation beyond proof-of-concept Scarcity of data on, eg, performance, impact, acceptability, partly due to recent implementation |
Political awareness and desire to work with drones is increasing Political interests are aligned with drone project objectives Positive feedback from communities on the potential use of drones for health African Drone and Data Academy will build local skills and entrepreneurship opportunities Supportive regulatory environment enables drone use in absence of final regulations Wealth of lessons learnt by the pioneer implementers of bi-directional drone use encourage project continuation and guide new projects Drone testing corridor provides opportunities for different types of drones to be tested by different users Donor interest to fund existing and new projects Potential for cost-effectiveness compared with conventional transport Increasing number of use cases reaching more people in need of healthcare |
Occasional unreliability of currently available technology (hardware and software) Limited technical expertise and capacities in-country leading to dependency on external/international service providers Competing interests between in-country health stakeholders Sensitivity and potential dangers of delivery of blood or biological samples Unsecured funding to continue activities, potentially reversing health gains Local health sectors reliant on donor funding with limited ability to assume financial responsibility |
