ICAO Hosts High-Level Aviation Meeting in Belize for the First Time

The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) is holding its twelfth North American, Central American, and Caribbean Directors of Civil Aviation Meeting in Belize. The high-level three-day event is taking place for the first time in Belize with participation from over ninety officials and dignitaries. In attendance was Prime Minister John Briceno, who has the portfolio for civil aviation.  According to Briceno, the regional leaders discussed important areas of aviation security and air connectivity challenges in the Americas.

John Briceño, Prime Minister of Belize: “We’re very happy that ICAO has decided to have the 12th regional conference of the Americas, the Caribbean and Central America here in Belize. We’re quite excited about it and we’re talking, we’re looking at having several discussions on the challenges that we’re facing in the civil aviation industry from connectivity to security, to be more sustainable, being more gender inclusive. These are some of the challenges that we face as a region and we’re preparing them for the 42nd General Assembly that will be taking place later this year. So we’re hoping that we can come up with a set of positions and policies that we want to promote at the 42nd General Assembly. We are a member of the ICAO and certainly, but it’s by region. So in the Central American region we belong to COSESNA. So we work along with the Central American countries, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Costa Rica and Nicaragua. So these are countries that we work together under COSESNA and then the other countries working in other.  So we have them by blocks. So we work in the Central American block under COSESNA. We get a lot of assistance, for instance, through COSESNA we just got a new radar in Belize that was just recently inaugurated I think it was late last year.”

Director of Civil Aviation Nigel Carter provided greater insight into the regional goals of ICAO and Belize’s efforts to improve domestic aviation.

Nigel Carter, Director of Civil Aviation: “Some of the discussion points are gender equality, sustainable aviation so the reduction of carbon emissions in aviation activities, raising the effective implementation of the oversight bodies in the region, and also the connectivity. Connectivity, as we know, is vital for Belize. In the region, in the Caribbean region, in the Central American region, connectivity is not where it ought to be. For instance if you want to travel from here to Jamaica it would take you nearly two days definitely with an overnight in Miami or Houston or whatever other destination you have in the US. If we would only have flights between Belize to Jamaica direct or something within the region then we can obviously ensure that people can be more efficient in doing business and traveling for leisure purposes. So discussing matters that are of mutual interest to the region and hoping that we can bring out a few solutions to ensure that there’s better efficiency and profitability for aircraft operations in the region. We have 20 countries in participation and 15 international organizations as well.”

The conference ends on Thursday.