The United Nations Humanitarian Air Service is saving lives in places like Madagascar, Haiti and the Central African Republic – even as a funding shortfall bites
Madagascar’s pioneering food drops
Atop a hill in the southeastern Malagasy village of Lanakasy, Honera Tsara yells for her 10 children to rush outside. A deep, whirring sound fills the sky, like a swarm of giant bees, growing louder by the second. An unmanned aircraft surfaces from the clouds, then – one by one – boxes of specialised nutritional food descend gently from the skies.
For the first time in three months, aid has arrived to this remote village without a backbreaking journey across hills and rivers. Rolled out for the first time in February in Madagascar, the World Food Programme’s (WFP) Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) amount to the new face of humanitarian assistance – one where technology is breaking barriers that once seemed impossible.
“I have never seen something like this – food and medicine falling from the sky,” Tsara says, watching her children cheer as the cartons touch down. “I told my children, ‘Come and see! This will keep us healthy.’ Everyone is happy today.”
Yet even as we roll out cutting-edge innovations, WFP’s UNHAS faces a US$206 million funding shortfall as of February 2025, threatening our ability to reach vulnerable people in Madagascar and the 20 other countries where we operate.
“The funding shortfall is putting UNHAS operations in jeopardy, threatening access to some of the world’s most fragile regions,” says WFP’s Chief of Aviation, Franklyn Frimpong. “We have already started scaling down operations most impacted. If we do not receive additional support, we may have to halt flights – leaving humanitarian teams unable to reach those in need. This would have devastating consequences for the millions relying on humanitarian aid.”
In Madagascar, highly prone to weather extremes, nature itself has been one of the biggest obstacles in getting life-saving aid to hungry communities. Harsh terrain, flooding and underdeveloped infrastructure mean that communities like Lanakasy often wait weeks or even months for assistance – in a country where more than 1.9 million people face acute food insecurity, and nearly 40 percent of children are chronically malnourished.
“Inaccessibility has always been a major challenge,” says Olivier Marcel, Regional Coordinator of Madagascar’s National Nutrition Office.
WFP’s pioneering unmanned aircraft, able to deliver 160 kilos of nutritional supplements per drop, can dramatically “improve the treatment of malnourished children in remote areas,” Marcel adds.
“This is a step toward our dream where no community is too far to receive help,” says WFP Madagascar UNHAS head Nejmeddine Halfaoui.
Lakanasy resident Rakotovazaha Tity sees the difference first-hand.
“I have two kids who are being treated for malnutrition,” says Tity, who also witnessed the first WFP airdrops. “We know that so long as the unmanned aircraft are flying, there will be no interruption of assistance.”
Haiti’s airline of last resort
An unremarkable dirt field sits amidst modest houses and multi-story apartment buildings in a hilly suburb of Port-au-Prince. During ordinary times the area – located near WFP’s office in the city – might have become a construction site or an improvised children’s football field.
But these are not ordinary times in Haiti. And with insecurity spiralling across the island nation, the patch of land has morphed into a crucial transportation hub for UNHAS helicopters – which today offer the only way for thousands of humanitarians and others to get safely in and out of Haiti’s violent capital.
“UNHAS is a service which WFP puts in place where there are no other options,” says UNHAS Chief Air Transport Office in Haiti, Armando Puoti, adding, “what we are doing here is truly fulfilling UNHAS’ mandate.”
That mandate has became all the more vital since last November, when Port-au-Prince’s main airport halted passenger service after three commercial airliners were hit by gunfire. The suspension effectively cut off the city – now largely controlled by armed groups – from the rest of Haiti.
UNHAS stepped in less than two weeks later, providing service from the suburban landing site. It’s a temporary but life-saving solution, which has become the new normal for UNHAS Haiti’s 10-person team.
WFP-managed UNHAS now offers passengers twice or more daily helicopter service from the capital to other Haitian destinations – transporting some 7,000 passengers from different humanitarian organizations over the last four months alone. That’s double its passenger load over the same period a year before, allowing humanitarians to reach many of the six million people desperately needing assistance. WFP’s office has been repurposed into a check-in area and airport lounge.
“We can’t do our work throughout the country without relying on UNHAS,” says UNICEF Deputy Executive Director Ted Chaiban, minutes after stepping from an UNHAS helicopter onto the dusty field.
On a visit to witness the hardships facing Haiti’s children and UNICEF’s response, Chaiban ticked off a raft of destinations his staff must reach regularly, “to provide lifesaving interventions, immunization, treatment against severe acute malnutrition.”
“The only way that we can do that,” he adds, “is by having this air access.”
With commercial service still disrupted, UNHAS remains the only humanitarian air option. That’s translating into long hours and stressful conditions facing Puoti’s team, especially his Haitian colleagues.
“They’re always going above and beyond,” Puoti says, “to make the service happen.”
A morning flight to Bambari
The 17-seater UNHAS Dornier 228 taxis down Bangui’s runway shortly after sunrise. Within minutes the Central African Republic’s capital has disappeared from view. As the plane climbs higher and heads northwest, sunlight glints off the tin roofs of small villages below, amid a vast expanse of scrubby grassland and trees.
For the sleepy humanitarian workers aboard, there are few alternatives to the 50-minute flight to the central town of Bambari. Making the 400-kilometre drive can take nearly eight hours down bumpy, red dirt roads that become impassible during the May-October rainy season.
In this landlocked nation grappling with a dearth of infrastructure – and where roughly one in three people is severely food insecure – WFP-managed UNHAS is often the only way to swiftly and safely deliver life-saving assistance. No commercial airlines exist.
“There are no other options to reach our destinations,” says WFP UNHAS CAR’s Chief Air Transport Officer Kaviraj Khadun. “Without us, humanitarian activity would not exist.”
Last year, UNHAS’ fleet of three fixed-winged aircraft flew nearly 20,000 humanitarian workers and 133 metric tonnes of food, medications and other essential cargo to more than three-dozen destinations countrywide.
Ahmadou Tidjani, an IT expert for the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), is a UNHAS regular. He is heading to Bambari this morning to check the installation of solar panels at the local UNICEF office.
“This is the seventh African country I’ve worked in, and UNHAS is indispensable,” says Tidjani, who has spent 25 years as a humanitarian worker. He recalls the time UNHAS flew a seriously ill man for treatment in Chad a few years back.
“He was in a critical state,” Tidjani says. “Without the flight, he would never have survived.”
For UNHAS’ Khadun – who has spent nearly 20 years as a pilot in Africa – ensuring safe, reliable air service is a top priority. The small fleet in CAR is especially designed to use scarce fuel reserves efficiently, ensuring every dollar invested goes as far as possible.
“I’m really committed to working for WFP Aviation and the humanitarian community,” he says. “My aim is to put my pilot background, technical expertise and management skills into creating a safe and reliable air service for humanitarians.”
Donors to WFP-managed UNHAS include Australia, Canada, the European Union, France, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, the United States and the United Nations.
