Another reason to
Re-visit Critical debates in Africa & West Africa’s Aviation Sector (1)
By E.K.Bensah Jr
The twin weekend accidents
of 2 and 3 June in Ghana and Nigeria respectively, which resulted in a total
loss of almost 180 souls should be seen as two accidents too many for the West
African aviation sector. Never mind the three days mourning and the grounding
of Dana Air in Nigeria, or the call for relocation of Kotoka International
Airport, if there is anything we must
take out of these two tragedies, it is the call and need for a re-vamped and
more secure African aviation industry.
There’s no gainsaying the
innovative industry that is the air industry contributes significantly to the
economy of any nation. It drives economic and social progress; connects people,
countries; and cultures. It also offers access to global markets and generates
trade and tourism. According to the African Union, “aviation in general
provides the only rapid worldwide transportation network, which makes it
essential for global business and tourism thus facilitating economic growth,
particularly in developing countries.”
The AU maintains that “the
air transport industry directly generates 5.58 million jobs globally and
directly contributes USD408 billion to global GDP.” It also contributes “USD1.1
trillion to world GDP through its direct, indirect and induced impacts –
equivalent to 2.3% of world GDP.” Worldwide, Africa represents 10% of total
jobs and 2% of GDP generated by the air transport industry, including catalytic
impacts.
Liberalisation has played a
critical element in the aviation industry worldwide. First, it has permeated
all aspects of the aviation industry with competition by helping to elevate
awareness, expectations and choice at the same time as protecting consumer
rights. Second, liberalization and privatization have led to a steady reduction
of state control of the aviation sector.
An upside of this trend has
been many more states collaborating among themselves through the establishment
of regional; inter-regional and other strategic partnerships based on common
economic interests, such as the Nairobi-based Association of African Airlines (AFRAA), and the Abuja-based Banjul Accord Group(BAG). This has
encouraged, according to the AU, harmonisation of regulations; integration and
management of assets; pooling of resources, etc, which can only enhance the
growth of civil aviation, thus benefiting the agencies involved and consumers.
In order to obtain a
greater insight of the aviation sector in Africa, a brief description of the
two collaborative ventures is necessary.
Association of African Airlines (AFRAA)
The African Airlines Association (AFRAA) was
established in April, 1968 originally in Accra, Ghana as a Trade Organisation
open to membership of airlines of African States. Today, there are currently
forty members from African Union member States, including Ethiopian Airlines;
Kenya Airways; South African Airways; ASKY, and Ghana’s Starbow airlines
According to the AFRAA website, “the formation of the
African Airlines Association (AFRAA) was the result of historic developments
and economic imperatives”. Though it is vague on what these “imperatives” are,
it goes on to explain the context of the Cold War and the ushering of
independence of many African states in the 1960s as one of the reasons for its
establishment.
In the early 1960s, a great number of African States
acceded to independence and created their own national airlines. Most of these
airlines became members of the International Air Transport Association (IATA).
In 1963, AFRAA had its “conceptual beginning” when a
number of African airlines, taking the opportunity provided by the IATA Annual
General Meeting (AGM) began holding consultation meetings prior to the IATA
AGMs to discuss matters of interest to African airlines and to adopt common
positions. This was the first step towards the creation of AFRAA.
From that first step in Rome in 1963, the
establishment in 1968 in Accra, of a regional organisation for the articulation
of regional views and promotion of co-operation was undertaken by 14 founding
members.
Cairo, Egypt, would play host to the first Annual
General Assembly in February, 1969 which approved the Articles of Association
among other decisions taken.
According to the association’s website, its activities
over the last four decades show that AFRAA can modestly claim that: (a)it has
been in the forefront of major initiatives in the air transport field in Africa
in sensitizing African airlines to take concrete actions for co-operation in
operational, commercial, technical, and training fields. An ancillary
claim-to-fame is being “instrumental in sensitizing African Governments through
the African Civil Aviation Commission
and other regional and sub-regional organisations on the actions to be taken
for the development of an efficient air transport system. It has been a
catalyst for all the major policy decisions in the Continent”.
Banjul Accord Group (BAG)
On 29 January 2004, seven West African States namely Gambia,
Ghana, Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria, Cape Verde and Sierra Leone met
in Banjul, Gambia to sign the Banjul Accord Group (BAG) Agreement.
The objective of this agreement requires BAG member States to harmonise their
policies and procedures on civil aviation and foster the development of international
civil aviation through cooperative arrangements between the States.
Interestingly, with the exception of Lusophone Cape Verde, the other six ECOWAS
member states are all members of the West
Africa Monetary Zone.
Subsequently, in 2004, the seven BAG member States signed a Memorandum
of Understanding (MOU) for the implementation of the Co-operative Development of Operational Safety and Continuing
Airworthiness Project for the Banjul Accord Group (COSCAP-BAG). According
to the BAG website, “the project was implemented under the ICAO Technical
Cooperation Programme through assignment and technical back-stopping of
internationally recruited experts in the fields of flight operations,
airworthiness, flight Safety Regulations and aerdromes and regionally recruited
inspectors, for carrying out safety oversight functions on behalf of the BAG
member States.”
It may interest one to know they have an updated website on http://www.bagasoo.org/en/, and have culled the information of the twin
crashes on their site at the time of writing.
The African Civil Aviation
Commission
A specialized institution of the African
Union, the Dakar-based African Civil Aviation Commission (AFCAC) was created by
the Constitutional Conference convened by the International Civil Aviation
Organization (ICAO) and the-then Organization of African Unity (OAU) in Addis
Ababa, Ethiopia, in 1964. AFCAC was fully established and began functioning in
1969 and on 11 May, 1978 became an OAU Specialized Agency in the field of Civil
Aviation.
From its inception, AFCAC was technically,
administratively and financially managed by the UN agency ICAO through African
member State’s contributions. AFCAC became autonomous from ICAO management as
recently as 1st January 2007, meaning that it has officially been
financially-independent for only five years!
AFCAC today comprises 54 African States and
is managed through a triennial Plenary (consisting of all member States). The
Bureau is made up of a President, 5 vice-presidents (representing North, West,
East, Central and South African Regions) and the Coordinator of the African
Group at the ICAO Council and the Secretariat is headed by a Secretary General.
According to the website of AFCAC on http://www.afcac.org/en/, its vision is to
“foster a safe, secure, efficient, cost-effective, sustainable and
environmentally friendly Civil Aviation industry in Africa”. The Third meeting
of the African Ministers in charge of civil aviation matters which was held on
11th March 2007, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia entrusted AFCAC with the attributions
and responsibilities of the Executing Agency for the implementation of the
Yamoussoukro Decision. The Resolution was endorsed by the Assembly of the Heads
of State and Government in Accra, Ghana on 29th June 2007. To accommodate these
added responsibilities, AFCAC adopted a new Constitution at a meeting of
Plenipotentiaries which was held in Dakar, Senegal on 16 December 2009 and the
Constitution came into force on 11th May 2010.
In the next piece on aviation industry in Africa/West Africa, I will
spend more time on the role of the aviation sector especially in the sub-region
and offer a summary of the second session of the AU conference of Ministers responsible
for Transport that took place in Luanda, Angola in November 2011.
In the meantime, Saturday
16 June will be two weeks since the Ghana/Nigeria crashes. Is anyone counting
down to the outcome of the report from the established committee?
In
2009, in his capacity as a “Do More Talk Less Ambassador” of the 42nd
Generation—an NGO that promotes and discusses Pan-Africanism--Emmanuel gave a series of lectures on the
role of ECOWAS and the AU in facilitating a Pan-African identity. Emmanuel
owns "Critiquing Regionalism" (http://www.critiquing-regionalism.org). Established in 2004 as an initiative to respond to the dearth of
knowledge on global regional integration initiatives worldwide, this non-profit
blog features regional integration initiatives on MERCOSUR/EU/Africa/Asia and
many others. You can reach him on ekbensah@ekbensah.net / Mobile: 0268.687.653.
