ICAO Secretary General Dr. Fang Liu was in Beijing earlier this week, where she provided remarks to a special closing ceremony for the ICAO Civil Aviation Authority Senior and Middle Managers Training Course conducted there.

Dr. Liu expressed ICAO's deep appreciation to the Government of China for its important funding contributions, under its South-South Cooperation Assistance Fund (SSCAF), which were instrumental to both the development and global delivery of this new course. She similarly praised the important contributions made by the China International Development Cooperation Agency (CIDCA), the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC), and the China International Centre for Economic and Technical Exchanges (CICETE).

"Because of all of this valuable support, ICAO has been able to provide scholarships to over 500 senior and middle managers from civil aviation authorities in all seven ICAO Regions, and from over 80 Member States," Dr. Liu stressed.

The managers selected to participate in the course were chosen because ICAO's safety and security auditing and related analyses identified them as being critical to the strategic and day-to-day decision-making which together ensure effective ICAO compliance.

Dr. Liu emphasized that compliance training is especially important today because of "the challenges now confronting global civil aviation in terms of sectoral growth, skilled personnel shortages, and the key role of ICAO-compliant air transport connectivity in helping States to achieve the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)."

"Providing this type of quality training, which has such clear tie-ins to many States' ultimate realization of the Agenda 2030 SDGs, is directly in line with ICAO's No Country Left Behind Initiative and core commitments in support of our Member States," she added.

While in Beijing for the course closing ceremony, Dr. Liu also forged progress on a number of additional priorities for ICAO.

To help ensure additional future cooperation under China's SSCAF framework, she met with Mr. Zhou Liujun, Vice Chairman of CIDCA, and later conducted joint discussions with Mr. Wang Shengwen, Director General of Outward Investment and International Cooperation in China's Ministry of Commerce (MOC) and Mr. Zhang Yi, Deputy Director General of the CICETE.

The three major SSCAF stakeholders praised the dedication and professionalism which ICAO demonstrated in the successful launch and effective implementation of the new GAT training course.The three stakeholders further agreed to expedite the 2019 launch of USD $2 million ICAO-SSCAF Technical Cooperation projects in Africa and to consider providing the funding to extend the scope and scale of the Senior and Middle Managers Training Course.

Dr. Liu also held a series of meetings in Beijing focused on further partnerships and cooperation with the Administrator and Vice Administrators of Civil Aviation Administration of China, the President and CEO of the Capital Airport Holding Group, the President of the Civil Aviation University of China, and other senior officers from the Chinese Civil Aviation sector.

During her mission, the Secretary General was accompanied by the Director of her Office, Ms. Yan Jiarong; the Chief of ICAO's Global Aviation Training Office, Mr. Meshesha Belayneh; ICAO's Regional Director for Asia-Pacific, Mr. Arun Mishra; and the Head of ICAO's Strategic Planning, Coordination and Partnerships Office, Mr. Henry Gourdji.

Contributed by ICAO