Collaboration and the Road Ahead for Africa

0:05
Welcome to the Unitrans podcast. Today is a special virtual roundtable bringing together multiple perspectives on the future of logistics across Africa. If we look at collaboration now, can you share an example of where collaboration across sectors or borders has helped address a practical operational challenge?

0:27 (Patrick Thedi – Botswana)
I think for us, collaboration doesn’t remove constraints, but it reduces the surprise that we have, especially during corridor congestions. We’ve seen it working very well for us. It’s really in Botswana’s context. The logistics committee is relatively interconnected, and political cooperation often yields measurable operational improvement. You’ll have situations where the systems change in a particular jurisdiction and through collaboration and inter-continual interventions, it helps to reduce downtime. If there are no engagements, it then takes longer. It really helps in terms of the turnaround of the documentations, dispatch timing and capacity planning.  This really stabilises the congestion.

1:32 (Phil Henning – Namibia)
I think just again, talking about us and Botswana collaboration – having the people on the ground – because when he had sent vehicles for the first time here, we could have been the face and go and see the local customer that they needed to supply. Having footprints all over and having backup and people on the ground that adds a lot of value when you can put a face and you can say, well, I’m representing, even though it’s a different country, I can go and assist. For me, the collaboration between the sectors and stuff is one of the big strong points of Unitrans being all over, even though, poor Sygrid, the island is not helping a lot because it’s not there next to any of the countries. But for us in Africa, when we send vehicles sometimes to all the different Tanzania, Zambia, all of it. Having a Unitrans footprint there does open a lot of doors and will make it easier having a local person going to speak to people regarding problems. It’s always very important to have that collaboration in between the parties. And like I said, I think that’s one of the strong points of Unitrans in Africa.

2:50 (Sygrid Georget – Madagascar)
I can give you an example that is not necessarily specific to Unitrans, but more on the project that we are participating in. Well, I can explain for years the region where we are, was an economic island. The mine we work for needed a way to export minerals and import heavy machinery, but the local infrastructure was failing at that time. At the same time, the government wanted a regional development that connect the capital. High level intentions for economic growth were stopped because the physical roads were essentially seasonal riverbeds. To bridge the gap, the partnership was formed between Rio Tinto, which is our customer, and the government of Madagascar and the World Bank. Instead of the mine building a private jetty, they collaborated with the government to build a public port. Rio Tinto provided the anchor investment, the World Bank provided the developmental expertise, and the government provided the legal framework. And this turned into a mining expanse into a national gateway.

4:15 (Sygrid Georget – Madagascar)
And recently this partnership also went further. Between 2023 and 2025, sorry, the Malagasy government and Rio Tinto formalised the joint investment of roughly 20 million USD to fix the national road that comes to the city by sharing the cost. By doing that, the private sector gets supply chain reliability, and the public gets a road that connects them to the other regions. And then also during the severe, you call it the drought (I think that’s the name in English), the logistics systems designed for mining were piloted. The deep-water port and the logistical networks of the private sector were used to move international food aid like a world food programme or Red Cross into the deep south far more efficiently than the broken road network would have allowed previously. I think that’s a good example of collaboration.

5:33 (Julius Gladson – Tanzania)
So speaking from agriculture environment. I think collaboration has been crucial in actual improvements into operations and also efficiency learning from each other. Specifically, I can share maybe two or three examples. We had our colleague from Zambia. Unitrans Zambia had issues in their loader operations. They were having loaders breakdown – significant loader breakdown. They couldn’t even achieve their given targets from the client. I met with the contract manager say, OK, look, I do have a loader trainer here. I can send him down there to help you. The guy went down there and see how they operate. And he identified a lot of issues, and he sit with a team for almost 2 or three weeks. And after he left, there was massive improvement. The problem was not sitting with the equipment because we were running the same piece of equipment. The problem was sitting with the skills and know how to operate the machines. The problem was sorted and I guess we are working very well.

6:57 (Julius Gladson – Tanzania)
And recently we had like a visit from a team from Malawi because they were moving from manual harvesting to mechanical harvesting. We were introduced to mechanical harvesting 3 years before them. And the team visited us and they go through operations, they see how we do it, they go through the papers, everything. And surprisingly before they left, then they identified some issues which we also had in our operations from scheduling the shift as well as loading, which we thought we were doing very well to do loading. They identify some issues and they say, OK, the way you are running, doing this loading, you are losing some payload into your fleet. If you do it this way, you can get more payload. And when we practise what they told us to do and then we could see the difference. You can clearly see that between these two, between these operations, when you collaborate, you get to learn from each other. It is very good to have this collaboration across our operations. And it helps to learn from each other and add the value into our business.

8:28
Thank you very much, gentlemen. We definitely see how important collaboration is when it comes to logistics. And we really appreciate how you guys have collaborated and really been able to solve many problems as a result of that. But tell us, despite the challenges, where are you seeing signs of progress or promising opportunities that point to what Africa’s logistics future could become?

8:51 (Patrick Thedi – Botswana)
That’s the thing for me, it’s the increased adoption of technology, especially in the tracking space where we see adoption of DriveCam, tracking and sophisticated technologies that has been a welcome development for us. There is greater focus on safety and compliance, especially across regions, in the corridors that we traverse.

9:24 (Phil Henning – Namibia)
But I think the opportunities Africa being realised, especially with the mining, most of the Africa countries has got a lot of mining opportunities and especially with commodity prices in the world, there’s a lot of opportunities that is begging at the moment. We just look at the gold, copper, uranium, all of those, the things in the pricing and we need to be sharp enough to be able to make use of opportunities like those. And I think Africa is showing, at the moment, the world that a lot of them are interested due to the fact of all the mining that’s going on. I do think there’s a lot of opportunities going forward. And I think it’s quite positive in Africa at the moment.

10:08 (Phil Henning – Namibia)
But I think in the Africa space, especially in Namibia, there’s a lot of developments, especially with the oil fields that’s been discovered and might be developed. All of those things I think can open doors into Africa further up. From a Namibia perspective, we are quite positive that there are quite a few nice things moving in the transport sector.

10:33 (Julius Gladson – Tanzania)
You can clearly see there’s a lot of effort which has been put through especially into our organisation like identify training gaps through a training analysis which has been conducted. And we can see that we are trying to make sure that the technology will help us get more qualified and ready operators and mechanics to operate that equipment. We try to close that gap. And there’s a lot of involved needs from the high level to today to the guys on the ground. And we can see the Africa is unfolding very well. There’s a lot of opportunities.

11:27 (Julius Gladson – Tanzania)
There’s a lot, especially let’s say from where I’m working from Tanzania, there’s a minimum not less than I think 5 new sugar estate, which is coming up. And you can see that there’s that news from where the Africa used to be and where it’s going. There’s a lot of potentials. And the good thing is also the investors. They’re keen to put money into this magnitude, receive this investment and these opportunities. And look, from what I can see, there’s a very positive sign. Despite all the challenges, there’s a very positive move from technology, from investment and from involvement as well, which is a very good sign.

12:22 (Sygrid Georget – Madagascar)
I think technology is key for development and also creates new ways of working. I can give you 2 examples in Madagascar that in my view are very positive. There’s one project that is called the Sahanala project which is in agriculture. Historically, it was a vanilla or cashew farmer in a remote region that was at the mercy of travelling. Collectors dictated prices because the farmer had no way to get their goods at the port. And then Sahanala organised farmers into a massive federation that owns its own processing plant and logistic assets because in 2025/2026 they secure the significant backing, including 20 million USD from the European Investment Bank to build a sophisticated farm to port value chain.  They’re not just selling raw crops, they are processing them locally, meaning they ship higher value, lower volume goods, which makes transportation cost of Malagasy roads much easier to bear. That’s one example.

14:03 (Sygrid Georget – Madagascar)
The other example is that recently Madagascar has become a global testing ground for medical drone logistics because sometimes it’s often faster to fly 50 kilometres than drive 5 kilometre in the rainy season. There was a collaboration between the Ministry of Public Health and a private organisation who created permanent flight corridors for vaccines and blood samples. In this year, this strong logistics should be integrated into the National Health strategy, effectively leapfrogging the need for paved National Road to save life in remote villages. Noting that kind of technology and new models that Africa is doing too.

15:01
Thank you very much. As we can see, technology plays a significant role in all of this, and we really appreciate your inputs on that. Looking into the future now as supply chains continue to evolve, what shared principles help support resilience and efficiency over time?

15:19 (Sygrid Georget – Madagascar)
Maybe I can start this time. I think in the current global context, more than ever, I believe the implementation of systems like African Continental Free Trade Area or SADC or COMESA have been creating regional apps to reduce export exposure to global shocks and give more resilience to Africa. And I think also, like we mentioned, new technologies and especially AI can also help, for instance, to forecast disruptions before they happen. It can help for ports like the ports in Madagascar to be more reactive during the monsoon season or for navigating infrastructure gaps in the local conditions.

16:21 (Phil Henning – Namibia)
I think maybe from our side as well, we spoke about SADC and I think everybody is talking and say, we must have licences to make it easier and that. But I do think while on the one end the people are talking to make it easier, it is not going easier. I think if we can get the cross-border and the flowing and all of the other things people put a bit of their pride aside and we are working; all countries can benefit tremendously. Like I said, Africa is quite big, but there’s a lot of stuff that moves on the road. Rail is something that the people must still look at, but it is not coming right at the moment. I do think we need to look at how is the safest way that we can get everybody their needs. But also, the more ineffective or unproductive we work, the more expensive it becomes at the end of the day for the consumers. And in Africa especially the consumers are taking the brunt with a lot of the stuff. I think it’s all up to us to also make sure that as we use the technology that also pass down at the end of the day, that at the end of the day, the countries need to grow, that the normal man on the street can feel the benefits, but also that we can do the things safely and get everybody home. It’s a big task, but I think it’s the future is definitely bright. I think most of the steps is in play. It’s now to just get everybody on board to do their part.

17:51 (Patrick Thedi – Botswana)
I think it is important that we improve on predictability along the corridors that we use because surprises really are a constraint for us. We also need to deepen cross sector dialogue and collaboration and further engagements and maintain safety and sustainability as a non-negotiable in our industry.

18:21 (Phil Henning – Namibia)
Transport and logistics isn’t supposed to be very complicated. We supposed to take something from point A to point B, but I do think that all the challenges that’s coming in between and that’s how we can adapt. But like everybody is saying, technology is there and we’ve got all of AI and all of that. But as long as we don’t have something like a type of a Starlink that can get to all the remote areas where you can then apply the technology. Because unfortunately all the technology needs connectivity. And I think that’s also one of the biggest challenges in Africa, to get all the remote areas covered that you could get the technology at the right price. Because I think if we can get there, the benefit and the way that we can operate will be so much more like Patrick is saying, predictable. You can predict better, you can act better, you can make the thing more streamlined. I think from that perspective, yeah, it’s quite simple, but it’s not as simple because you need certain things for certain things to work.

19:26 (Sygrid Georget – Madagascar)
Then I think technology is a key, that’s for sure. Developing regional logistic apps to create more flexibility. Recently also the dialogue around African countries has shifted maybe, from building more infrastructure to connecting better. The most significant priority, to me, is not physical roads, but digital. Like you mentioned the connections and Internet and all of that is very important. For instance, I think a continent-wide push to harmonise digital customs is necessary also and we can also rely on Africa’s leadership in some technologies. I’m thinking for instance, on mobile money that can also be a leverage to accelerate growth from Africa, because for instance, mobile money represents 70% of the global transactions. That’s a big leverage.

20:42
Very true. Gentlemen, thank you so much for your input. We really appreciate it. Well, through this episode, we’ve learned that the future of African logistics will be shaped collectively, not in isolation. We’d like to thank our guests for their diverse and candid perspectives. They’ve really helped us to see that through dialogue, partnership and shared commitment, and most importantly, we’ve also seen the value of collaboration as a foundation for long term resilience and continuity in logistics. So, gentlemen, thank you once again for joining us and we really appreciate your perspective.