Niger drone company takes off in Sahel

Abdoulaziz Kountché begana drone business in Niger 10 years ago.

The entrepreneur and grandson of General and former Nigerien leader Seyni Kountché is the founder of Drone Africa Service.

It designs drones. which are used by companies for a variety of tasks and is hoping to soon be able to transport medicines.

"These are drones that are dedicated to mapping, particularly in the context of risk and flood management, but also for agriculture, and we hope soon to be able to use them to transport objects," said Kountché.

Although the drones are designed and created in Niger's capital Niamey, some of the hi-tech materials, such as cameras, are brought in from abroad.

"Everything that makes the drone operational is really designed here in Niger: the models, the drawings, the plans,* said Kountché.

"What we bring from abroad would be everything that is resins, polymers since these are products that cannot be found here."

The drones have another important use. Insurgencies have conducted deadly raids in the Sahel for the last few years and drones have made it possible to monitor remote areas, where international organizations can't always get to.

"I'm talking about terrorism, so that, unfortunately, remote monitoring more and more difficult, so solutions had to be found, in particular by using new technologies," Kountché said.

Drone Africa Service is also designing drones for companies in Mali, Benin and Burkina Faso.

The innovator's ambition is to train more designers and to create a Drone Academy this year.