2016: YEAR-ENDER
Call it great development. UNICEF, Malawi humanitarian in drone testing corridor
The UN children’s agency, Unicef and Malawi have established an air corridor to test potential humanitarian use of drones which are unmanned aircraft systems (UAS).
A statement released by Unicef says the corridor is the first in Africa and one of the first globally with a focus on humanitarian and development use.
“It will run for a maximum distance of 40 km and become fully operational by April 2017. The corridor is designed to provide a controlled platform for the private sector, universities, and other partners to explore how UAS can be used to help deliver services that will benefit communities,” reads the statement in part.
Malawi’s Minister of Transport and Public Works, Jappie Mhango is optimistic that the southern African nation will benefit a lot from the initiative.
“Malawi has over the past years faced serious droughts and flooding. The launch of the UAS testing corridor is particularly important to support transportation and data collection where land transport infrastructure is either not feasible or difficult during emergencies,” he said.
The benefits of the Humanitarian UAS Testing Corridor are plenty and they include:
- Imagery ability which entails generating and analyzing aerial images for development and during humanitarian crises, including for situation monitoring in floods and earthquakes
- Connectivity which enables exploring the possibility for UAS to extend Wi-Fi or cellphone signals across difficult terrain, particularly in emergency settings
- Transport that will result in delivery of small low weight supplies such as emergency medical supplies, vaccines and samples for laboratory diagnosis, including for HIV testing.
