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Key points
- African logistics face challenges like fragmented infrastructure and diverse regulations affecting delivery reliability
- Real-time visibility plays a critical role in tracking shipments to anticipate and mitigate delays
- Advanced technologies, including predictive analytics and real-time tracking platforms, enhance delivery reliability with accurate ETAs
- Collaboration among stakeholders, such as local governments and logistics providers, is crucial to overcoming infrastructural and operational challenges.
As you’d expect, tracking global shipments isn’t equally easy in all four corners of the globe. One particularly challenging corner is Africa, principally for technological or infrastructure-related reasons; but not only. Legislative and financial obstacles also abound across this vast continent’s 54 countries, each with their own laws and economies.
What are the key challenges behind tracking shipments in Africa?
- Variable road quality: Inadequate road infrastructure directly impacts delivery reliability. Often in Africa, trucks must slow for potholes or take longer routes, and breakdowns are frequent. Poor roads dramatically reduce average transport speeds, leading to transit times four times longer than in other regions for similar distances. For example, In Central and West Africa, vast stretches of unpaved roads turn to mud, causing long detours or stranded trucks during rains. Cameroon has 10 times more unpaved than paved roads, many becoming impassable in the wet season and forcing costly delays, thereby justifying the need to have smart algorithms to estimate ETAs at destination.
- Frequent Road incidents: Africa has the world’s most dangerous roads, with the highest road traffic fatality rate globally (about 26.6 deaths per 100 000 people, versus the global average of 17.5). For freight carriers, this translates into frequent accidents, vehicle damage, and loss of cargo. A real-time transportation risk monitoring system like Shippeo can be highly beneficial in this context by providing real-time visibility into the location, condition, and progress of shipments. This enables proactive risk mitigation such as rerouting away from high-risk zones, speeding up emergency response, and triggering alerts in case of route deviations or long stops. This ultimately improves safety, reduces losses, and strengthens customer trust.
- Customs and Border Delays: Cross-border freight in Africa is frequently slowed by customs procedures and long waits at borders. Many African countries have complex paperwork requirements and duplicate inspections that create bottlenecks. In West and Central Africa, inefficiencies can keep trucks waiting at borders or ports for days. For example, due to congestion, it can take up to three months to import goods through Nigeria’s Port Harcourt, compared with one month via South Africa’s Durban. Land borders are often congested too: at the Kasumbalesa border between DRC and Zambia, mining truck queues reaching up to 60 km, which can add weeks of delay to shipments.
- Security issues and cargo theft: Freight carriers in Africa also face serious security risks, from cargo theft to hijackings. This varies by region. For example, remote highways connecting landlocked countries to ports are high-risk. Trucks hauling minerals or agricultural commodities (like copper or cocoa) can be ambushed. Beyond hijackings, theft can occur at rest stops or warehouses if proper security isn’t available. These security problems mean goods can be lost or delayed, so transport firms must invest in escorts, tracking, and insurance, driving up costs.
- Lack of real-time tracking solutions: Limited visibility into shipments is a persistent challenge in African logistics. Many carriers and shippers cannot track freight in real time, leading to information gaps on delivery status. Traditionally, a shipper might only get updates when the driver makes a phone call or when the truck arrives. This is changing with technology, but adoption is slow.
The Solution: WhatsApp!
Due to network connectivity issues, WhatsApp is widely used in logistics in Africa, as it is optimized for weak connections. 2G/3G is enough to send and receive messages, meaning a WhatsApp message is 5 times more likely to get delivered than an SMS Combined with the Shippeo platform and mobile app this means all actors can benefit from asynchronous communication. Even if a driver goes offline in a dead zone, the data is stored in the smartphone and sent automatically when a signal returns. This helps to provide notifications to the supply chain stakeholders about the latest status of the shipments.
A major energy producer saw its development in Africa impeded by some of the aforementioned factors. So Shippeo decided to shift from SMS to WhatsApp to manage its delivery notifications. The impact? More reliable communication, wider reach, and real-time feedback.
Here are all the reasons we recommended WhatsApp to our client:
- Message delivery rates: WhatsApp has a 100% delivery rate in Africa, versus 20% for SMS in some late-reception regions, like rural and industrial zones.
- Cost of SMS vs WhatsApp: Sending a notification by SMS is an expensive solution for the Shippers compared to WhatsApp due to wording limits.
- Engagement: Notifications are more likely to be opened and acted upon by logistics staff, especially in locations like ports, mines, gas stations and warehouses. Coupled with public link tracking, this provides valuable data on customer engagement and project impact
- Operational Control: Teams can monitor who received, read, and acted on alerts. If a critical delivery is delayed and a notification is missed, the control tower can intervene by contacting the recipient directly
- Incident Management: Two-way communication allows immediate reporting and response to any potential issues along the way.
Smarter messaging, smoother deliveries
With more business units adopting WhatsApp in their customer facing processes, our customer will continue refining message content, optimizing delivery schedules, and expanding two-way communication. This ensures goods are delivered in full - i.e. with no loss of product en route - at the planned location, while keeping all stakeholders informed and aligned at all times.
