World Bank Study Urges Air Services Liberalization to Promote Safety and Development in Africa
MONTREAL, Canada, September 27, 2010/African Press Organization (APO)/ — African countries can improve air safety and
promote their own economic growth and development prospects by putting into
practice commitments they have made to open local air service markets to
foreign operators, says a new study by the World Bank.
“At present, 31 African countries have poor safety standards, resulting in more
air crashes than in any other region of the world.” said Charles Schlumberger,
the World Bank’s lead air transport specialist and author of the study, Open
Skies for Africa — Implementing the Yamoussoukro Decision. “For them,
achieving an adequate safety and security oversight regime is the most urgent
air services policy challenge.”
The World Bank study, which author Schlumberger presented today to air services
experts attending a conference co-hosted by McGill University’s Institute of
Air and Space Law and International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), calls
on African countries to implement all commitments they made in the Yamoussoukro
Decision. The Decision, named for the Ivorian city in which it was agreed upon
in 1999, commits its 44 signatory countries to deregulate air services, and
promote regional air markets open to transnational competition. It followed up
on the Yamoussoukro Declaration of 1988, in which many of the same countries
agreed to principles of air services liberalization.
Eleven years later, several African states are applying the principles of the
Decision in bilateral air service agreements, but there is little evidence that
the Yamoussoukro Decision is being applied continent-wide. The study concludes
that about one-third of African states are reluctant to liberalize as this
would expose non-competitive carriers to operational standards they would be
unlikely to meet.
“A historic opportunity is being missed,” Schlumberger said. ”Ten countries
have not signed on to or completed proper ratification of this decision, and
many others that are signatories have not implemented it. Meantime, most
countries in Africa that have abandoned their ailing carriers and opened up to
foreign operators now have air services, both passenger and freight, that are
more efficient, safer, and with more competitive prices.”
Drawing on statistics gathered by the International Air Transport Association
(IATA) and other organizations, the study reports that over the past decade,
Africa’s aircraft hull-loss accident rate is more than six times higher than
those of Asia and Latin America, and more than 12 times higher than those of
Europe and North America.
The study says that prospects for reducing this accident rate would improve if
African states applied bilateral sanctions against airlines that fail to meet
safety standards established by ICAO. In fact, Schlumberger said, this is what
African air regulators agreed to do when they signed the Yamoussoukro Decision
in 1999.
In addition to improvements in quality and pricing of air services, he said,
countries that have abandoned national airlines are in a position to redirect
state resources thus saved to investments that have more positive impact on
economic development. In addition, lower transport costs achieved through
enhanced competition reduces a significant trade barrier for African countries,
while also improving prospects for increased tourism.
Specifically, the Yamoussoukro Decision calls for, among others:
* Full liberalization of intra-African air transport services in terms of
access, capacity, frequency, and tariffs
* Free exercise of first, second, third, fourth and fifth freedom rights for
passenger and freight air services by eligible airlines (These rights, granted
by most international air service agreements, enable, among others,
non-national carriers to land in a state and take on traffic coming from or
destined for a third state.)
* Liberalized tariffs and fair competition
* Compliance with established ICAO safety standards and recommended practices
“Reliable, safe and competitively priced air services are essential to better
integrating Africa with the global economy,” said Jamal Saghir, World Bank
Director for Sustainable Development in Africa. “African air transport leaders
recognized this with the Yamoussoukro Decision and now this study underlines
the need for action on those commitments.”
Open Skies for Africa’s recommendation that African states to implement the
Yamoussoukro Decision applies to all its signatories, but especially mentions
those that have not signed or properly ratified it, namely Djibouti, Equatorial
Guinea, Eritrea, Gabon, Madagascar, Mauritania, Morocco, Somalia, South Africa,
and Swaziland.
To download the report, please visit:
http://web.worldbank.org/transport/openskies
SOURCE
The World Bank
