On August 12, 2024, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) officially launched the Congo Drone Académie, a first of its kind training initiative for remote drone piloting at the National Institute of Professional Preparation (INPP) in Limete, Kinshasa.
VillageReach launched its “Drones for Health” program in the DRC in 2020 to ensure the transport of health products by drones (vaccines, medicines, laboratory samples, lab results and health reports) across the Equateur province. However, faced by a lack of local pilots, the organization and its drone operator partners had to outsource qualified drone pilots from Malawi.
In 2021, VillageReach initiated contact with INPP to discuss the creation of a drone piloting training center to increase the local workforce and expertise. To realize this initiative, several steps were taken before the launch of the academy, including the training of INPP instructors and Civil Aviation Authority (AAC) executives at the Senegal Drone Academy, and the development of training modules and teaching materials.
This work ensured that, today, the DRC has the necessary infrastructure and materials for the creation of its very first drone academy.
“The creation of the Congo Drone Académie within the INPP allows the country [DRC] to have a local workforce of qualified and certified drone pilots,” declared Godefroid Stanislas Tshimanga, Director General of the INPP. “These training courses mean that thousands of Congolese will be able to access quality drone training. It will no longer be necessary to go abroad to train in remote drone piloting, which was previously achieved thanks to the partnership with Senegal Drone Academy.”
Drone technology is increasingly used across various sectors in the DRC: to conduct mapping, for transportation of health products, and in media for photography and videography. Local expertise will now be developed to meet this growing demand.
For VillageReach, two additional provinces, Maindombe and Mongala, will soon join Equateur in using drones to transport health products in hard-to-reach areas.
“When VillageReach initially announced its drone transportation project, five years ago, we were starting from nothing to realize the government’s vision of having hard-to-reach areas benefit from quality health products using this innovative means of transport. The academy is a great joy to see, not only for extending health delivery to more provinces, but also for sustaining the use of drones to benefit several key sectors in the country,” said Dr. Patou Musumari, DRC Country Director, VillageReach.
“We are thankful for this collaboration with INPP, which will make the DRC one of the countries with a critical mass of drone pilots. Our contribution, through the endowment of educational materials to INPP, will help to strengthen what the Congolese learn during their training within Congo Drone Académie.”
Drones, in addition to being a means of rapid transport to improve access to hard-to-reach environments, can be used in several sectors to overcome geographic and infrastructural barriers. They are used in sectors such as agriculture, livestock, energy and the environment. After more than 4 years of operations in the Equateur province, the DRC now has the largest network of transport of health products by drone in the world. Increasing local expertise will support not only the DRC’s health sector, but these other sectors.
INPP’s Congo Drone Académie, which is certified by the AAC, offer both local and international certification. The Academie’s inaugural cohort counts 10 students, who will be trained for 14-21 days.
Source: Village Reach