Executive Director of PENAf, Dr. Harry Barnes-Dabban, speaking on Eye on Port
Ports in the West and Central Africa have embarked on an initiative to uniformly adopt best environmental practices for a sustainable maritime industry.
Named the Sustainable Port Partnership Initiative, this cooperative arrangement will establish and operationalize innovative concrete projects to minimize the impact of port infrastructural developments on coastal resources and communities as well as ensure that port operations improve the environment.
This program, launched April 2021, is under the purview of the Ports Management Association of West and Central Africa (PMAWCA), facilitated by the Ports Environmental Network-Africa (PENAf) and funded by the World Bank.
In an interaction with the public on Eye on Port, the Executive Coordinator of the Ports Environmental Network-Africa, Dr. Harry Barnes-Dabban, chronicled the genesis of this initiative.
He said, “the World Bank in 2018 initiated the West Africa Coastal areas program which aims to support the efforts of West African countries to improve the management of their shared coastal natural resources and manage the risks that affect these resources, and by that, boost the transfer of knowledge and help mitigate negative environmental actions. Because ports are cited in the coastal areas, and the development of their infrastructure is really affecting coastal erosion, they sought to bring together the ports for this. But this idea tied into what the PMAWACA and PENAf were already doing. So, we partnered and created the Sustainable Ports Partnership Initiative.”
He said the program will adopt a pragmatic approach to inculcate environmental best practices in an African context.
Dr. Barnes-Dabban revealed that three ports will be selected to pilot this program and processes are advanced to arrive at a decision.
He noted that because of certain constraints “we cannot visit all 22 ports involved within a year. We will begin with three ports just to have something that is very representative of the region and then we will continue to extend to others after the first 3 have been piloted. Each port will have their turn.”
He explained that, to begin with, four priority areas of environmental management had been agreed by member ports and they include air quality, waste management, coastal erosion, and energy efficiency.
The Environmental expert also said arrangements have been made to assess the performance of all parties involved. This includes both internal and external audit arrangements.
He explained that while the initiative is in its infant stages, it has been able to cause the creation of a port sustainable charter for the first time in Africa.
The Executive Director of PENAf revealed that this project will have a non-state led governance mechanism.
Dr. Barnes-Dabban explained that “while the conventional arrangement where ports take policy direction from the state will remain, in this particular project ports will develop on their own, and it would be non-state led. This is not only at the local level, but at the regional level. The ports are not going to bypass the state. The state will be involved in discussions and decision making but only as an actor but not the dominant one.”
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