Participants at PENAf’s 4th International Port Environmental Sustainability Study Visit, organised for Ghana Ports & Harbours Authority in collaboration with The Netherlands Human Environment and Transport Inspectorate (ILT), Port of Amsterdam, Euroshore International, and Ghana Ports & Harbours Authority (GPHA), 28th November – 2nd December 2022, Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Theme: Cooperation for Effective & Efficient Handling of Ships’ Waste in Ghana’s Ports
WELCOME TO PENAf
Most African ports have in the last decade seen institutional restructuring and reform in a bid to not only modernise infrastructure but to also enhance productivity, efficiency and quality of service delivery. This has successfully attracted private sector involvement in the ports and significantly improved port operational performance. The reform progress however does not reflect conscious environmental and sustainability improvements in the ports. It has mostly focused on renovating and modifying port infrastructure to strengthen the individual economic positions of the ports. Integrating the restructuring with environmental roles and actions to achieve economic, social and environmental sustainability remain limited, unsystematic and fragmented.
Dr. HARRY BARNES-DABBAN, Executive Coordinator
However, in the face of continual decline of the overall global environmental quality and increasing pressures on world resources, African ports as part of the global maritime community are faced with a reality they cannot ignore. They are obliged to take responsibility in applying and committing themselves to a green transition with innovations necessary to meet sustainable development obligations required of them.
African ports share common environmental and sustainability challenges, but the ports inherently operate as fragmented individual entities with little recourse to the linkages of these challenges among them.
Improving sustainability is a challenge to ports globally but it is also a driver for change. It can only be tackled through partnerships and collaboration, if its full benefits must be realised. The ports sector connects many actors in a chain. No port in the chain can be really effective if viewed in isolation. Actions impacting one port can have an impact throughout the entire chain.
African ports must therefore of necessity initiate proactive and innovative actions and mechanisms that integrate environmental sustainability considerations into the overall port planning, policy making, operations and management to promote their sustainable development. The drivers inducing the institutional restructuring and reform of African ports are equally imperative for nurturing and supporting the environmental sustainability of the ports. The ports must therefore collaboratively pay attention to understanding the dynamics of their institutional reform, appearance and participation of the private sector in port operations, global environmental and sustainability practices and obligations, and the common character of their environmental and sustainability challenges to co-develop solutions and actions for their sustainable development.
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African Ports and the Environment Nexu
Join the 1st International Symposium in Management Studies 2022 (ISMS2022) for Walaika University, Thailand, takes place on 9th September, 2022 (8.00 a.m.- 4.00 p.m.) via Zoom meeting using the link below.
Morning Session
Topic: The 1st International Symposium in Management Studies 2022 (ISMS2022)
Time: Sep 9, 2022 08:00-12.00 AM Bangkok
Join Zoom Meeting
https://wu-ac-th.zoom.us/j/94801432399?pwd=dHJKNU5tVG9EdW9zWmQwZzgreXdFUT09
International Consultant Hails GPHA’S Proactiveness in Implementing IMO convention
The Executive Coordinator of the Port Environmental Network – Africa (PENAf), Dr. Harry Barnes-Dabban has commended the efforts made by the Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority to remain proactive in its approach towards sustainable port and shipping operations.
African Development Senior Managers Forum
Trends and current situation of multimodal transport development in Africa has been discussed at the African Senior Managers Forum organised by the Arab Academy for Science, Technology and Maritime Transport in Egypt and held between 19th – 23rd June, 2022. The Forum had the theme ‘Sustainable Multimodal Transport in Africa in the era of digitalisation and 4 th Industrial revolution’. Speaking on the topic ‘Multimodal Transport Sustainability: Challenges and Opportunities’, I identified a two-fold concern and identified a new governance mechanism as a needed part solution to addressing the current situation. Download posting (pdf)
Stakeholders discuss the role of African ports in the development of the blue economy
The African Natural Resources Center in collaboration with the Infrastructure and Urban Development Department of the African Development Bank Group brought together a range of stakeholders on 30 March to explore ways to integrate African ports more effectively into the blue economy.
Participants at the meeting—including representatives of the African Development Bank, the African Union Development Agency, governments, and regional bodies—agreed on the pressing need to develop national strategies to harness the blue economy. There was also consensus that ports, as a locus of many blue economy activities, should be an integral part of such a strategy. MORE….
