Poor air connectivity hampers region’s take-off

POOR connectivity by air to major economic, business and tourism areas, both inside and outside the sub-region remains a major challenge for the Southern African Development Community (SADC).

Inadequate flight frequencies and the high cost of air travel and freight are other concerns raised at a SADC Civil Aviation Committee (CAC) meeting held in Windhoek last week.’In order to address these challenges, SADC has initiated the development of a Regional Infrastructure Development Master Plan (RIDMP),’ a draft record of the CAC meeting stated.The primary objectives of RIDMP are to define the benchmark requirements and development targets in the area of infrastructure, and to provide a development framework for infrastructure to meet these requirements and targets.The CAC meeting has called on SADC member States to provide statistical data from 2006 on international facilities such as airports, passenger movements, cargo and air traffic movements at international airports and within their airspaces to update the RIDMP.The civil aviation authorities also recommended that SADC executive secretary, Tomaz Salamaom, sign a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the International Civil Aviation Authority (ICAO).The MoU is on the ICAO Policy on Regional Cooperation which states that ICAO is committed to render assistance, advice and any other form of support in technical and policy aspects of international civil aviation to contracting States in the execution of their responsibilities pertaining to the Convention of International Civil Aviation and ICAO Strategic Objectives.The CAC meeting also reviewed the National Search and Rescue Systems and Procedures, including bilateral and multilateral agreements and the feasibility of establishing a Regional Search and Rescue Organisation.The meeting resolved to make the development of a regional integrated transport policy and the harmonisation of airports’ policies, legislation, rules, standards and procedures new priorities.The SADC CAC meeting was attended by representatives from host Namibia, Angola, Botswana, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Lesotho, Mauritius, Mozambique, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe.The meeting was also attended by representatives from ICAO, the Airlines Association of Southern Africa (AASA) and the United Arab Emirates General Civil Aviation Authority (UAE-GCAA). – Nampa