The EU ASSP II Zambia Project had his 15th Technical Working Group meeting

The operational coordination meeting for the evaluation of the workplan activities progress of the EU project implemented in Zambia took place on the 23rd of July.

It is the 15th of these meeting for a project that is been running since 2017 and will end, after an extension given because of the COVID pandemic, in October 2022.

The project implemented by EASA is the first component of a bigger EU Action on Civil Aviation in Zambia; the second component was delayed and finally started in February this year.

This is creating some challenges in coordinating the common areas but the will to overcome them is clear and supported by the EUD to Zambia who is financing the Action.

This meeting e.g., related to the first component, was extended with the presence of the Project Manager of the second component to allow the best information share.

The EASA team (Carlos Tortosa, Carlos Menendez and Gabriella Garaffa) was enlarged by the presence of Carla Iorio as Section Manager of the International Technical Cooperation in the Africa region, and by the experts who are supporting the implementation of the project, Mario Colavita for the Accident and Incident Investigation part, Miguel Vaz Pinto for the M-CAR part and Dr Hazel Courtney for the SSP implementation part.

The DG of the Zambian CAA (and AFCAC President) Mr Gabriel Lesa was attending the meeting as well as the National Authorisation Officer of the 11th EDF Ms Katongo Musonda.

The workplan has been modified according to the constraints of the pandemic on all the OJT and personal meetings, and unfortunately these is increasing the challenges now towards the end of the implementation period, where the idea was to resume the postponed missed opportunities.

Nevertheless the deployed actions and work have been effective, thanks to the previously established good work relationships and the trust build in these past years and the huge improvements from the beginning of the project are just a confirmation of that.

The next Steering Committee Meeting on the 24th of September will then decide to future actions in case the lockdown measures will continue to prevent further travelling.