Africa’s logistics landscape is shaped by a diverse range of operating environments, each with its own opportunities, challenges and realities. In this special roundtable discussion (part 1), host Fransisco Nwamba is joined by Patrick Thedi (Unitrans Botswana), Phil Henning (Unitrans Namibia), Julius Gladson (Unitrans Tanzania) and Sygrid Georget (Unitrans Madagascar) to explore how logistics is evolving across different regions of Africa.
Drawing on their experiences across fuel transport, mining logistics and agricultural operations, the panellists discuss the practical challenges that continue to shape logistics performance. These include cross-border dependencies, infrastructure limitations, technology adoption, access to skilled labour, supplier constraints, remote operating conditions and the realities of local operating environments. While the challenges vary significantly from country to country, the discussion highlights the importance of understanding regional nuances rather than viewing Africa as a single, uniform market.
The conversation also explores the gap between strategic intent and operational execution. The panellists emphasise the importance of flexibility, local adaptation, strong relationships, operational discipline and contextual decision-making when implementing systems and managing supply chains. They explain why solutions that work in one region may not necessarily succeed in another and why local knowledge remains critical to achieving sustainable outcomes.
Ultimately, the discussion reinforces that the future of African logistics will be shaped by organisations that understand local realities, embrace collaboration and design solutions that balance global best practice with regional requirements. Success will depend on agility, people, partnerships and a willingness to adapt to the unique conditions found across the continent.
0:06
Welcome to the Unitrans podcast. Today is a special virtual roundtable bringing together multiple perspectives on the future of logistics across Africa. The diversity and complexity of operating environments across the continent mean that no single organisation or solution holds all the answers. Today we are joined by Phil Henning, Patrick Thedi, Julius Gladson and Sygrid Georget.
0:32
The purpose of the round table is to share challenges and perspectives influencing how logistics is evolving across African contexts. Gentlemen, very good to meet you. Thank you so much for joining us today.
0:44
Can you please share a little bit about yourselves and your roles in Unitrans?
0:50
My name is Patrick Thedi and I’m the General Manager for Unitrans Botswana, responsible for fuel transportation and chemical transportation across Botswana.
1:02
Good day. My name is Phil Henning. I’m the General Manager for Unitrans Namibia, based in Walvis Bay. I’ve been with the company for 27 years. In Namibia, we mainly look after fuel transport and then we’re doing some mining operations transporting from the loading vessels to the port.
1:25
My name is Julius Gladson. I’m General Manager for Unitrans Tanzania. I’ve been with the company for 17 years. We look after agricultural logistics. So, we’re doing cane haulage, mechanical harvesting, ratoon management, roads and canal and drones as well.
1:46
Hello, my name is Sygrid Georget. I’m General Manager for Madagascar. We are mainly working for one client here – we are working for Rio Tinto’s mining operation. We’re doing all the transport from the mine to the port and all the logistic on site for all the materials and also the cleaning on site. I have been with the company since 2012.
2:17
We’ll start off with the first question, which is: From your regional or sectoral perspective, what is one significant logistics challenge you encounter in your context and why does it remain difficult to address
2:30 (Patrick Thedi – Botswana)
Our biggest challenge is that we are heavily dependent on regional corridors as well as cross-border integration. So that is the biggest challenge that we have. We do not have free access into the sea, the ports and all that. We rely on other jurisdictions to make sure that we are aligned and efficient in our logistics.
2:57 (Phil Henning – Namibia)
From a Namibia point of view, what his challenges are, is a benefit for us. He’s landlocked, where Namibia has got the opportunities of having the port and then access to all the different countries next to us having Angola, Botswana, South Africa, all basically and Zambia available. From a challenging point of view is how to make use of all of these opportunities that’s available at the moment.
3:27 (Julius Gladson – Tanzania)
From Tanzania’s side, we are unique in agriculture. The main challenge we’re facing is technology and innovation versus skilled labour availability. We, as Unitrans, identified ourselves as an innovation and technology-based company. We provide solutions to our client. Normally when you have all this high-tech equipment from overseas, you are facing the challenge of getting qualified operators and technician to look after the machines. And this causes a risk of damaging your machine and also not getting the productivities as expected from the high-spec machine.
4:22 (Sygrid Georget – Madagascar)
For Madagascar, it’s very specific because firstly we are an island. Although the island is not necessarily the best served by international shipping companies, we can still predict deliveries from abroad. But the most significant logistic challenge we have is the extreme road fragmentation and degradation and consequently the island within an island effect it creates. If I can give you an example: It takes by car at least three days to drive 1200 kilometres from the capital to the city where we are operating. With a truck, it’s almost 10 days. If we need to take something from the main port of the country to our site, it’s at least two weeks.
5:23
There are also alternative solutions like small barges going from the main port to the city where we are, because we are also on the coast. The travel between the two ports is 4 days. But because where we are located, it’s not really attractive for shipping companies, the connections are not regular. That’s one of the main problems also because the ships will wait for loading to come to us before they come to us and they have unpredictable time schedule. That’s the main challenge for us – it’s remoteness.
6:16
Very interesting to hear your different challenges and sometimes opportunities as was brought out in Namibia. So, tell us, being gentlemen who work on the ground, where do people outside your region tend to oversimplify or misunderstand the realities of operating on the ground
6:35 (Phil Henning – Namibia)
If I can speak for Namibia, for us something that people misalign and especially people coming from South Africa, and that is even though it’s quite a big country, it’s got a very small population of only 3.1 million people. And a lot of the things that goes on in the country is all based on face-to-face and relationships. So, for you to just send an e-mail and then thinking that you can enter a market or get a contract, it’s quite difficult. You need to work very hard to make sure that you are meeting people and get to know you, because by knowing people and having a good name is key in operating in a place like Namibia. Yes, there’s big opportunities, but you also need to make sure that you are visible on the ground and meeting up with people and they very friendly people. But again, they need to know you to be part of a business culture here.
7:42 (Julius Gladson – Tanzania)
So from Tanzania perspective, Unitrans runs a couple of agriculture operations. So Eastern, Southern Africa. Very interesting is the operations looks the same, but they are very unique. Sometimes it’s not easy to bring a system and resolve all the operations because every operation is unique. Yes, it might be the same cane haulage operation or is the same harvesting operations. But every client has got his unique feature, every estate has got its unique feature and demands. Sometimes it’s easy for someone to come with this simple solution, which he or she tested in X country and assume that it will work the same across. That is the main problem. Most of the time the systems brought into the operations, they’re coming from top level and not from operations themselves. It’s key to understand what the operations need, what they want and don’t just bring something and expect everyone to work on it.
9:12 (Patrick Thedi – Botswana)
I think another oversimplification is treating Africa as one operating environment. I think also it’s an assumption that once you’ve got a good infrastructure, then everything will run smooth. That is not the case. There are a lot of factors that are playing into this whole thing like fleet reliability, driver capability, for us cross-border documentation accuracy is very important. We can keep our management and customer schedule and discipline all just matter as much. That’s what the ordinary people are, they think. And we need to get this done right. And each corridor has its own rhythm. I think in Botswana our major corridors is the Trans-Kalahari Corridor that joins Namibia, Botswana and South Africa and the north-south corridor that joins your Zambia, Mozambique and South Africa through to the Durban port. They have different rhythms as well.
10:20 (Sygrid Georget – Madagascar)
On the Madagascar perspective in addition to what Phil, Patrick and Julius mentioned, I would add 2 main things. First, the weather is a main stakeholder, and we often misunderstand the reality of that. It can have a big role in the operation. It can stop your operations completely. We have lots of cyclones, for instance, it’s the season currently. It can really have a big impact. The other factor we really need to take into consideration is real value of community engagement, because we usually see the community as a monolith but in reality, there’s a complex social history or hierarchy in the community. For instance, in Madagascar, a signed agreement with official responsible doesn’t mean that you have a broad social licence and trust you earn at the village level. You have to go through informal process and lots of informal discussions and engagements with the community to earn trust in the community and that takes time.
12:00
Tell us, where do high level intentions and day-to-day operational realities most often diverge in the logistics environment?
12:10 (Patrick Thedi – Botswana)
I think the balance is crucial for the high level intentions operational realities because if there’s no balance, then they will definitely diverge. But in Botswana, logistics, like much in Africa, is still highly execution driven. Trucks must depart, loads must arrive safely, drivers must comply with safety standards and equipment must be maintained at all times. The divergent is usually between strategic ambition and operational capacity.
12:48 (Phil Henning – Namibia)
It’s about the speed of execution because as it stands at the moment especially in the fuel market today, the oil companies will get from Natref or from Durban, something happens and everything swings to Walvis Bay. You need to be able to execute on very short notice and know what is needed. You can’t just know what’s happening around your pot, you need to know what is required when you need to go to a place like a Botswana. And that’s where the hand in hand comes in. But like Patrick is saying, what works in South Africa and what works at other places doesn’t always work in the Africa countries. But it’s all going nowadays about speed. There are so many people in the markets that is trying to compete and for you to be able to execute, because the guy who execute the quickest will have his truck back the quickest and he will get the next load. That’s key for us to be on top of it and to be able to execute as quickly as possible.
13:52 (Julius Gladson – Tanzania)
There’s a lot of variables into operations, especially in agriculture area. Sometimes what has been documented or what has been costed sometimes will not go exact as what the practical life says or what the practical life detect. There’s a lot of flexibility. A lot of flexibility is required just to make sure that you just give your client the confidence to rely on you and you are open to go the extra mile to help and make sure that things are happening on the ground. So sometimes on the practical side of it, you will maybe go the extra miles against what has been documented just to make sure that we are all sailing in the boat and no one is sinking just to make your customer survive and make sure that you still have revenue for next coming financial year. Those flexibility and variables we are dealing with can sometimes if you deal with it and help your client, it will sometimes give your client confidence and give you assurance of an open door for more work in future because you’ll be someone who’ll be reliable to your clients.
15:21 (Sygrid Georget – Madagascar)
On my side, I would more mention the standardisation versus local context. For instance, if sometimes we are trying to implement technologies in our areas, but you have a local network that is not reliable, it is difficult to implement. Or you also have local skills that struggle to keep up with the technological development. Also, when the local culture is not compatible with the corporate standards or even with national labour laws. And when you have, for instance, a corporate or international policies versus local survival, especially in environmental context, high level strategy will celebrate, for instance, a green site, while the people on site will have to manage the daily friction of protecting its conservation zone from neighbours who simply need to cook dinner. So that’s the type of thing we are facing.
16:41
So tell us gents what practical constraints are sometimes underestimated when designing or implementing logistics systems?
16:49 (Patrick Thedi – Botswana)
I think in Botswana context, it’s the level of skills, technology and systems that are required and obviously behavioural adoption. And secondly, it’s about the asset life cycle realities. I mean, in this side of Africa, we struggle to get parts, especially with certain models of trucks and equipment. That is a major constraint for us. And it’s something that needs to be not underestimated.
17:26 (Phil Henning – Namibia)
Especially like in Namibia that’s also quite small. We sometimes get national deals where it’s a very good deal. But those suppliers don’t have a footprint in Namibia. I’ve been asked I must get 3 quotes to do a job. I’ve only got one supplier that can do it. I don’t have an option like in Gauteng where you can buy a phone, 10 guys and you can get 10 quotes. Some of the stuff I don’t even have somebody that’s a supplier. Those are quite restrictive at the end of the day, and you can’t import everything. You need to be aware of who is your key drivers and who is your key customers and how can you make sure that you’re not going to have down time due to the fact that you can’t get certain services or ports. That is quite crucial for us is that the number of suppliers that we’ve got available for us, especially in the logistics area.
18:23 (Julius Gladson – Tanzania)
Sometimes the systems are so complex and they’re not considering where the operations are. The system should be as simple as possible and customise the system according to X operations. I’ll say sometimes we can get here. I understand sometimes as a corporate you can get a big deal and it will make you a lot of procurement savings, but not always those procurement savings will help your operations. You need to understand and you need to be into X operation to see exactly what they need and to help them and customise the system which will be helping them to drive the operations the way it’s supposed to go. And we must all understand that no one system will be a solution to all the challenges. There might be a couple of systems, it might be some system will work to X operation, and they will not work to Y operations. That need to be taken into consideration. At the end of the day, we can have an API which will read the reports and develop whatever report which is needed by executives. So, on my side, I do believe that the system owner should be the operations team and not anyone else. And those guys from the operation should detect what needs to be in the systems.
20:10 (Sygrid Georget – Madagascar)
On my side, just to add maybe 2 points. The first one I would say is the optimisation of inventory on site in remote areas like where we are. The just-in-time is sometimes just-impossible. It’s what we can call the buffer paradox that we need to find the right balance between having stock and trying to get parts in real time. But that’s a big challenge I think for most of the remote operations and the other ones is also, I’m just talking from our side because here we have one of the most important corrosion areas in the world. The corrosion tax is enormous. We can, if we don’t take it into consideration, we implement a logistic solution or a project, you will be completely out of your system because your machines will wear much quicker than what you planned and you will have maintenance problems etcetera. That’s also something we need to consider.
21:39
Gentlemen, thank you so much for your input. We really appreciate it. Through this episode, we’ve learned that the future of African logistics will be shaped collectively, not in isolation. In Part 2, our guests dig into the collaborations already solving these problems and where they see the continent heading.