- As IATA says African airlines recorded best safety performance in 2016
The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) , yesterday appointed Nigerian actress and activist, Stephanie Linus as the UNFPA Regional Ambassador for West and Central Africa.
A Member of the Order of the Federal Republic (MFR) of Nigeria, a national award bestowed on outstanding citizens by the President of Nigeria, Mrs. Linus is an award-winning actress and activist, who is passionate about women’s rights and health.
She is the executive producer of the movie – “DRY”, that tells a true-life story of a 10-year-old girl who was a child bride and who died early due to pregnancy-related complications, specifically fistula.
Through her foundation, the “Extended Hands”, Mrs. Linus has done extensive work in the field of fistula, which earned her the Miriam Makeba Award for Excellence in 2007, and the Beyond the Tears Humanitarian Award.
“It is my aspiration that access to reproductive health care for women and girls, especially family planning, will be seen not as a blessing to be wished for, but as a human right to be fought for,” said Ms. Linus.
“Fought for, not just because of equality, but because we are tired of women dying while giving birth, tired of teenage girls dropping out of school because they got pregnant too early, tired
of women not having a choice to decide if, when and how many children they wish to have. I know I am tired of this. This is why I feel honoured to partner with UNFPA and to use my network to make these issues widely known.”
“For UNFPA, improving the health and status of women and girls remains a priority, and we will continue to accelerate efforts, by building strategic partnerships to scale-up successful interventions that put young people first” said Mabingue Ngom, the Regional Director of West and Central Africa.
“Our ultimate aim is to deliver a world where every pregnancy is wanted, every childbirth is safe and every young person’s potential is fulfilled”.
As Regional Ambassador, Mrs. Linus will help advocate and raise awareness on these issues, whilst encouraging policies and laws that protect the rights and dignity of the girl child, and the critical investments needed for young people to fulfill their potential and for Africa to reap its demographic dividend.
In the meantime, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) on Friday said that Sub-Saharan Africa had its best safety performance within the last decade in 2016.
IATA said that airlines from the region had zero passenger fatalities and zero jet hull losses in its data released for the 2016 safety performance of the commercial airline industry.
This is contained in a document signed by IATA’s Director-General, Mr Alexandre de Juniac, a copy of which was obtained by the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos.
de Juniac said the all accident rate was 2.30 per one million departures, compared to 9.73 for the previous five years.
He said the continent also saw continued improvement in turboprop safety, with a turboprop hull loss rate of 1.56 (85 per cent lower than its 2011-2015 yearly average).
According to him, there was one non-fatal turboprop hull loss.
“Sub-Saharan airlines delivered a very strong performance in 2016. But we must not rest on this success. Safety is earned every day.
“The lesson from Africa’s improvement is that the global standards like the IATA Operational Safety Audit (IOSA) make a difference.
“ African nations should maintain this strong momentum by making IOSA and the IATA Standard Safety Assessment (for those carriers that are not eligible for IOSA) parts of their airline certification process.
“Regional governments also need to accelerate the implementation of ICAO’s safety-related standards and recommended practices (SARPS).
“As of year-end 2016, only 22 African countries had at least 60 per cent SARPS implementation,” de Juniac said.
He added that the 33 sub-Saharan airlines on the IOSA registry performed nearly twice as well as non-IOSA airlines in 2016 in terms of all accidents.
They also performed 7.5 times better than non-IOSA operators in the 2012-2016 period, he said.
On the global scale, de Juniac said the all-accident rate (measured in accidents per 1 million flights) was 1.61 per cent, an improvement from 1.79 per cent in 2015.
He noted that the 2016 major-jet-accident rate (measured in hull losses per 1 million flights) was 0.39, which was the equivalent of one major accident for every 2.56 million flights.
The IATA boss said: “This was not as good as the rate of 0.32 achieved in 2015 and was also above the five-year rate (2011-2015) of 0.36.
“There were 10 fatal accidents with 268 fatalities. This compares with an average of 13.4 fatal accidents and 371 fatalities per year in the previous five-year period (2011-2015).”
de Juniac said the 2016 jet hull loss rate for IATA member airlines was 0.35 per cent (one accident for every 2.86 million flights).
According to him, while this outperformed the global hull loss rate, it was a step back from the 0.22 accidents per million flights achieved by IATA members in 2015.
“Last year, some 3.8 billion travellers flew safely on 40.4 million flights. The number of total accidents, fatal accidents and fatalities all declined versus the five-year average, showing that aviation continues to become safer.
“We did take a step back on some key parameters from the exceptional performance of 2015; however, flying is still the safest form of long distance travel. And safety remains the top priority of all involved in aviation.
“ The goal is for every flight to depart and arrive without incident. And every accident redoubles our efforts to achieve that,” de Juniac, said.
Additional report from NAN
