In its ongoing efforts to further improve aviation safety around the world, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) announced new policies for greater transparency from results of its safety oversight audits and support for more regional cooperation among States and stakeholders in correcting safety deficiencies. These are two key elements of the new Unified Strategy of ICAO.

In the fall of 2004, the 35th Session of the ICAO Assembly adopted a Unified strategy to resolve safety-related deficiencies and directed the Organization`s Contracting States to share amongst themselves critical safety information which may have an impact on the safety of international air navigation. The Unified Strategy flows from this resolution.
In support of the Unified Strategy, the President of the ICAO Council, Dr. Assad Kotaite, confirmed that full reports from the Organization`s Universal Safety Oversight Audit Programme (USOAP) will now be made available to all 188 Contracting States of the Organization, rather than summary reports as is currently the case. USOAP assesses a State`s level of implementation of ICAO Standards and Recommended Practices (SARPs).

Dr. Kotaite was speaking before the Global Summit on Regional Aviation Safety Oversight, hosted by the George Washington University Consortium, in Washington, DC, on the theme of fostering the development, creation and effective implementation of regional organizations for civil aviation safety oversight.

Because of their inherent economies of scale and focus on harmonization, Dr. Kotaite explained that regional or sub-regional safety oversight organizations should be developed or strengthened to help States that lack the required human, technical and financial resources to adequately perform their national safety oversight operations.

It is critical that ICAO, national civil aviation authorities, industry and funding institutions coordinate and cooperate in the provision of aviation technical assistance and guidance. I encourage all stakeholders to forge better relationships with their counterparts in order to support countries and regional organizations in their various endeavours to comply with international standards, he said. Another resolution of the 35th Session of the Assembly calls for the expansion of USOAP to all safety-related Annexes to the Convention on International Civil Aviation, ICAO`s charter. The systematic and harmonized implementation of ICAO standards around the world is deemed essential to optimize aviation safety.

A specialized agency of the United Nations, ICAO was created in 1944 to promote the safe and orderly development of international civil aviation throughout the world. It sets standards and regulations necessary for aviation safety, security, efficiency and regularity, as well as for aviation environmental protection. The Organization serves as the forum for cooperation in all fields of civil aviation among its 188 Contracting States.

The Unified Strategy creates mechanisms for the integration of efforts to increase transparency and disclosure of safety-related information, to analyse available safety-related data from multiple sources and to establish partnerships to resolve safety-related deficiencies. Coupled with an expanded USOAP, I am confident that the Unified Strategy will make an important contribution toward further improving aviation safety around the world, Dr. Kotaite concluded.