Luanda – Managers at the Annual Council of the Port Management Association of West and Central Africa (PMAWCA) recommended Friday in Luanda the need to create a coordination of port and maritime actors in the continent.
According to the participants at the 42nd PMAWCA meeting, this coordination will contribute to attracting new sources of financing to reinforce the transition from fossil fuels to clean energy in Africa.
In addition, managers defended the priority of improving current operations to reduce negative externalities.
In this sense, experts advocated the implementation of standardised methods and norms to generalise the initial conditions that allow the implementation of the large projects on the scale of West and Central Africa.
According to the final recommendations, it is urgent to clarify the roadmap for port authorities that are members of the association and affiliates of international counterparts, in order to make the role, obligations and responsibilities of ports in the PMAWCA energy transition intelligible.
The event, which took place under the motto “The role of ports in the face of the challenges of climate change”, also recommended to the port managers a complete cartography that allows a better assessment of the current technical and technological conditions.
To this purpose, port managers argue that port authorities' initiatives need to be part of national and continental public policies.
The event, held from 15 to 18 November in the Angolan capital, also served for transfer of the triennial rotating presidency of the PMAWCA from Ghana to Gabon.
On the occasion, the outgoing president of that association, Michael Luguje, considered it urgent to synthesize the procedures of port customers (shipping companies, stevedores, shippers, among others) in terms of energy transition, adopting digitisation.
During the four-day event, the managers of ports in Africa discussed ongoing environmental sustainability policies and the challenges of port and maritime ecosystems.
Port Management Association of West and Central Africa (PMAWCA) was created in 1972 and Angola became a member in 1986, during the 12th Annual Council held in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
