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US Government Reviews Safe Skies For Africa Policy

The Safe Skies for Africa (SSFA) Initiative was formally announced by the President Clinton in 1998.The U.S Department of Transportation is designated as the implementing agency. The goals of the SSFA program are to improve safety, security and air navigation in sub-Saharan Africa. Eight countries were initially invited to participate in the SSFA program, later expanded to 10 states.

Through time, more attention was paid to a regional focus to safety & security in relation to compliance with ICAO standards. In June 2009, the U.S Government Accountability Office issued a study of US Government efforts to improve aviation safety in Africa. A mong other things, the report recommended that the U.S Department of Transportation asses the long term goals of the Safe Skies of Africa program by leading an inter-agency strategy for U.S. involvement in aviation in Africa. At present, the U.S. DOT and the Federal Aviation Administration are working on a new direction for the Safe Skies for Africa program.

The U.S Government should be applauded for being the first government worldwide that is seeking coordination from other safety support providers to Africa.

EASA Technical Assistance Missions To Africa

In the framework of regulation 2111/2005 of the European Union establishing an EU list of banned carriers (also known as the "blacklist" the European Commission has signed a contract with European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) to conduct Technical Assistance missions. These missions will be conducted by the International Technical Co-operation section and are directed to those Civil Aviation Authorities that need to build up their technical and administrative capacities in order to fulfill their international obligations as per the ICAO Chicago Convention and the related Annexes.

The deficiencies of these authorities, revealed by the ICAO audits may lead to an operating ban of all the operators under their supervision .The missions are part of the global EU policy in Civil Aviation that is based on cooperation with the international partners, and on assistance to those partners that are challenged in meeting their ICAO obligations.

The missions focus on structuring the ICAO Corrective Action Plans that are generic in essence with a project management approach and are conducted in a cooperative manner with the experts from the beneficiary CAA.The main outcome of the missions is a roadmap under a "Gantt chart" format. The missions are an opportunity to review in details the necessary actions. EASA and the CAA jointly agree on a set of observations and practical recommendations on how to implement the Corrective Action plan that can be used by the international community to better support the CAA.

In East and Southern Africa, missions took place to Zambia and Malawi.

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