Drones successfully deliver contraceptives to women in rural Ghana

Inspired by Amazon’s vision of unmanned delivery drones, public health specialists have created Project Last Mile, a scheme that uses drones to deliver contraceptives to women living in remote rural areas in Ghana. Project Last Mile, which is jointly funded by Coca-Cola, UNFPA, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and the United States Agency for International Development, has been so successful in its mission flying birth control, condoms, and other medical supplies to rural areas in Ghana over the past months that the program is now set to expand into six other African countries. Governments in Tanzania, Rwanda, Zambia, Ethiopia and Mozambique have even expressed interest in taking over the program in their countries and paying for it themselves.

The delivery process is simple. Drone operators pack a drone with supplies and pilot it to rural areas difficult to access by car. Local health workers then meet the drone and pick up the supplies. Each flight costs only $15. “Delivery to the rural areas used to take two days,” says Kanyanta Sunkutu, a South African public health specialist. “It will now take 30 mins.” Sunkutu believes drones have the potential to revolutionize rural African life — from health, to education, to politics. “We’re going to use family planning as an entry,” he says, “and make it sustainable.”

Read the full story at Pulitzer Center.