The Need for Reliable Transport
'All the donated drugs in the world won’t do any good without an infrastructure for their delivery.' -- Dr Margaret Chan, Director-General of the World Health Organisation
Statistics for health problems
Currently, 30,000 children under the age of five die every day across the developing world from preventable or treatable diseases including measles, diarrhoea and malaria. Immunization programmes still do not reach 30 million children each year. A quarter of a million women die each year in Africa because of complications during pregnancy or childbirth. Access to skilled attendants could reduce these deaths but more than half of women in sub-Saharan Africa give birth alone or with untrained assistance.
The tyranny of distance
The aid exists to prevent this unnecessary waste of human life and suffering but developing new vaccines, donating mosquito nets, and producing condoms will have no effect unless they reach their destination.
Millions of people across Africa remain deprived and isolated from health care due to distance, terrain, poverty and lack of transport.
One African health worker can be responsible for up to 20,000 people, scattered across miles of treacherous terrain. There is little or no public transportation and even the best roads are little better than dirt tracks.
Delivering health care on foot or by bicycle is an exhausting and near-impossible task, but even when vehicles are available they quickly break down if no-one has the expertise or resources to maintain them.
Sulayman Suso, from the Gambia, knows the anguish that poorly-managed transport can cause. His wife Karo was about to give birth, but the ambulance which should have taken her to hospital broke down. Karo and her unborn child both died. Now Sulayman is left to care for their two-year old daughter, Ooli.
'I know that if my wife had been taken to hospital she would still be alive today. She's dead because there was no transport. It should never have happened. I feel such a terrible sense of loss and my little girl will never know her mother.'
Lack of infrastructure, skills and expertise
When development organisations plan programmes in Africa, they often underestimate the costs of maintaining vehicles. Tens of thousands of pounds are spent on new vehicles, but put into an environment where there is no support network to keep them running. There is 
little local understanding of preventive maintenance, with trained technicians few and far between. Without routine maintenance, these vehicles will break down, and without proper budgeting, it is unlikely that there will be the money available to replace the broken parts. As a result the health care programme will fail, and those targeted will remain out of reach and isolated.
To the founders of Riders for Health – people who had worked with engines all their lives – this situation was unacceptable, and they were determined to find a solution. Over the last 20 years, Riders have created a system for managing vehicles in the harsh conditions of Africa, which can be applied across the developing world.
In this video Riders' co-founder and CEO, Andrea Coleman, explains the impact that a single motorcycle can have on a health system in Africa and the importance of keeping that motorcycle well maintained:
Find out about Riders' solution.