The International Civil Aviation Organization, ICAO has expressed worry over the risk associated with a lack of sufficient institutional, legal and regulatory enabling frameworks in many African States, making it very difficult for financial institutions to invest in airport projects.
The ICAO President, Dr. Bernard Aliu who expressed the worry during his message to the 59th delegate conference of the Airport Council International in Lagos said, it had become increasingly difficult for many States and airport operators to mobilize the significant and dependable funding and investments required for high quality aviation infrastructure.
According to him, “the very limited volume of official development assistance (ODA) and South-South cooperation funding currently available for our sector’s infrastructure projects is a big part of this challenge, as are the constraints being faced with respect to public financing more generally”.
Aliu emphasized that the rapidly-expanding air traffic could only be sustained and optimized through the continued development and modernization of local aviation infrastructure, particularly at airports.
“The current efforts being undertaken to reposition air transport in Africa, and ensure its sustainability, are in clear acknowledgment of the fact that regional air traffic is still forecast to grow at roughly 3.8 per cent annually thru 2032”.
“On the other hand, due to the more recent and increased focus on air transport liberalization, many African hub airports are now expected to exceed their capacity by 2020, with a new set of attendant challenges relating to the safety and efficiency of operations”,he added.
Another area of worry for ICAO is the acceptance of international flights without requisite certifications by many African countries.
The ICAO president noted that, “in order to address this significant deficiency the ‘AFI Plan’ includes a specific project championed by ICAO Dakar and Nairobi Regional Offices to assist African States in Aerodrome Certification In compliance with the Standards and Recommended Practices (SARPs) contained in Annex 14 to the Convention on International Civil Aviation”.
“It is also important to remember that airports are very much at the ‘front lines’ where aviation security and passenger facilitation are concerned, and that they are the source of many travellers’ first impressions of the country they may be visiting”.
Dr. Aliu also stressed the need for African states to work together in check -mating the spread of communicable diseases through airport, adding that Airports play a very important role in the efforts to check the spread of communicable disease through air transport.
He said, “conscious of these challenges, ICAO has been working with ACI and other stakeholders to assist States in securing resources and capacities to develop and modernize their aviation infrastructure”
“We are also working together to foster Collaborative Decision Making (CDM) to improve real-time coordination and information sharing between airport operators, aircraft operators, ground handlers and air traffic control as well as with border control agencies to enhance safety, security, and I would like to take a moment here to thank ACI for its contribution to the improvement in Africa-wide implementation of ICAO’s safety, security and facilitation SARPs”.
He commended ACI for being supportive in their quest to promoting safety and security, “I am pleased to acknowledge that a good deal of the total success being achieved under our No Country Left Behind initiative, has also been due to ACI’s collaborative Airport Excellence (APEX) in Safety and Security and other related programmes”.
