Upcoming Events
6th AFRICAN PORTS INTERNATIONAL ENVIRONMENT & SOCIAL SUSTAINABILITY STUDY
VISIT AND TRAINING WORKSHOP,
28TH OCTOBER – 1ST NOVEMBER 2024, ROTTERDAM
‘Bringing International Cooperation Partnership to Bear: Improving Waste Shipment Regulation, Inspection, Monitoring and Enforcement in African Ports’
Strict waste management regulations in advanced economies is having negative ramification on developing economies with inadequate waste regulations and associated ineffective implementation and enforcement, as they become recipients of waste exports from developed economies. Such exports are mostly through the maritime route and therefore making waste shipment a challenge for developing economies to contend with, particularly those in Africa.
In contributing to the development of adequate capacity aimed at addressing this waste shipment challenge, PENAf in collaboration with the Human and Transport Inspectorate (ILT) of The Netherlands Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management, Ports Management Association of West and Central Africa (PMAWCA), and Ports Management Association of East and Southern Africa (PMAESA) are by this 6th Study Visit, seeking to promote inter-agency and transboundary cooperation and operational governance mechanism among African competent authorities with a role in transboundary waste shipment and management.
The workshop will include an On-Site Mock International Joint Waste Inspection Exercise to offer participants a hands-on international best practice learning.
Participants are drawn from Ports and Shipping Authorities, Customs, Maritime Administrations, and Private Port Operators in Tema, Takoradi, Douala, Kribi, Bata, Cotonou, Cape Verde, Namibia, Mombasa, among others.
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.
Training Workshop on MARPOL/Port Reception Facilities for Port Authorities and Reception Facility Operators in West & Central Africa Ports organised by PENAf in collaboration with Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority (GPHA) and the Ports Management Association of West and Central Africa (PMAWCA)
Theme: Working Together on Environmentally Sound Management of Ship Wastes: Challenges and Opportunities
11th – 13th March 2024
Tema, Ghana.
Ports Environmental Network–Africa #PENAf in collaboration with Ghana Ports & Harbours Authority #GPHA has organised a two-week training on Effective MARPOL Implementation and Efficient Operation of Port Reception Facilities for a delegation from the Port Authority of Bata #BataPort in Equatorial Guinea. The delegation was taken through the legal requirements, rights and obligations of MARPOL and its six technical annexes; environmental assessment for installation and operation of port reception facilities; as well as the Ghana process and experience in that regard. They also observed a hands-on practice of ship waste inspection, discharge and treatment in Ghana’s Tema and Takoradi ports.