– African Union invites CARICOM to discuss linking nations

AFRICA and the Caribbean are joined by the Atlantic crossing, history and culture but not by air, something which the African Union (AU) and CARICOM will be examining carefully during the three-day International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) air transport meeting which started on Wednesday.

Stakeholders believe that the linkage between Africa and the Caribbean is long overdue but is still relevant.

“Many of you delegates attending this meeting would have travelled through two to three different time zones for a period of three days to attend this very important meeting,” said Minister within the Ministry of Public Infrastructure, Annette Ferguson, in her remarks to the participants and others who were gathered at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre for the opening of the meeting.

She believes that stakeholders in the aviation sector need to develop a way to reduce the time spent on traveling between the continent and the Caribbean.

Tourism is the backbone of the economy of the Caribbean region which is reached primarily through air transport. So, maintaining and expanding air connectivity is vital for economic growth and the livelihood of people across the region.

“Improved, regular and more affordable air connections facilitate greater people to people contact, enable economies to attract more tourists, conduct more trade and attract more foreign investment,” said CARICOM Secretary General, Ambassador Irwin LaRocque.
The ambassador said those opportunities would be possible once the Caribbean is linked to Africa.

AU, in response to the intention of CARICOM, invited the Community to meet and further discuss the linkage between the Caribbean and Africa.

Commissioner for Infrastructure and Energy at the African Union Commission, Dr Amani Abou-Zied, agreed that aviation provides a critical infrastructural link for the promotion of tourism between the Caribbean and the continent and for linking the people of the Caribbean to the motherland.

The linkage would be necessary, especially at a time when Africa’s population is projected to double by 2020.

She believes that as the population increases, it would be wiser for the nation to reach out to its diaspora which would provide opportunities for the growing population.

Guyana has already taken one step closer to creating those linkages and is expected to sign air service agreements with Ghana, Tanzania and Nigeria, potentially bridging the gap between the diaspora, and by extension, Europe and North America.

Shaheed Sulaman, Director of Air Transport at the Guyana Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) had said that the GCAA is expected to sign agreements with Aruba, Tanzania, Ghana and possibly even Nigeria and is currently awaiting final confirmation from the governments of Tanzania and Ghana on their availability to sign the agreements.

“A part of this interest by the African diaspora is because they want to look at links and they will focus on linking Guyana and the Caribbean with the African continent; the objective here is to see how much and how feasible it is to implement flights between the Caribbean and Africa,” said the Director of Marketing and Operations Support at the GCAA, Franklin Vieira.