The President of the ICAO Council, Dr. Olumuyiwa Benard Aliu, received an Honourary Doctorate from his alma mater, the National Aviation University of Ukraine (formerly the Kiev Institute of Civil Aviation Engineers.)
Discussions focused on ICAO’s global role and the assistance and capacity building it could provide the Ukraine under the Organization’s ongoing No Country Left Behind initiative.
MONTREAL and KIEV – The President of the ICAO Council, Dr. Olumuyiwa Benard Aliu, highlighted the need for determined cooperation supporting international airspace safety while on mission in the Ukraine earlier this week.
The Council President was accompanied on his visit by ICAO’s European and North Atlantic Regional Director Mr. Luis Fonseca de Almeida, and his points were stressed during a series of high-level bilateral meetings held with the Vice-Prime-Minister of Ukraine, Mr. Volodymyr Kistion, the State’s Minister of Infrastructure, Mr. Volodymyr Omelyan, the Chairman of the State Aviation Authority of Ukraine (SAAU) Mr. Oleksandr Bilchuk, and Director of the Ukrainian State Air Traffic Services Enterprise, Mr. Dmytro Babeichuk.
“The roles and responsibilities of ICAO Member States are clearly delineated in the Convention on International Civil Aviation and its Annexes,” President Aliu remarked, “and have served to help ensure the safety and security of international civil aviation for many decades. ICAO is presently reviewing some associated regional concerns through its Black Sea Task Force, and we look forward to the collaboration of our Member States in resolving the current challenges of civil operations over the Black Sea.”
Discussions focused on ICAO’s global role and the assistance and capacity building it could provide the Ukraine under the Organization’s ongoing No Country Left Behind initiative. Highlighted in this regard was the need to assure the State maintains a strong, efficient and autonomous civil aviation authority in order to assure the effective safety and security oversight functions which all ICAO Member States are responsible for.
“This support is essential for States to effectively set out and adhere to ICAO’s global Standards and Policies,” the Council President stressed, “but it also requires substantial local political will and concrete commitments. The Ukraine can count on ICAO’s assistance and capacity under our No Country Left Behind initiative to help it achieve these objectives, and thereby optimize air transport’s unique socio-economic benefits, and for our part ICAO will be counting on the Ukraine’s closer cooperation and support for our global and regional programmes.”
President Aliu also encouraged the Ukraine to accelerate efforts towards the liberalization of its air transport sector and simplifying its visa regime.
Separate visits were also held with the Acting Rector of the National Aviation University of Ukraine, Mr. Volodymyr Isaienko, on the occasion of President Aliu receiving an Honourary Doctorate, and to the Antonov manufacturing and services company facility in Kiev, where the Council President was given a detailed tour.
Honourary Doctorate bestowed on Council President Aliu by National Aviation University of Ukraine
The President of the ICAO Council, Dr. Olumuyiwa Benard Aliu, was honoured by his alma mater earlier this week when and Honourary Doctorate was bestowed upon him by Mr. Volodymyr Isaienko, Acting Rector of the National Aviation University of Ukraine.
In receiving his honourary degree, President Aliu expressed his heartfelt appreciation for all that the school has meant to his life and career, noting that its teachers and his fellow students had instilled in him a profound excitement for civil aviation which has only been amplified in the decades since.
“I can clearly attest to the fact that, once you have become involved in global aviation, its infectious and pioneering spirit will never leave you,” he commented. The Council President also stressed that “each and every day in the course of my duties I am fully engaged by the intensive multilateralism and determined spirit of cooperation which are the hallmarks of international air transport progress, and I can certainly attest to how the National Aviation University of Ukraine had imparted in me the important lessons and values which have been so essential to my career.”
Acknowledging that he was accepting his degree only partly for myself, and also on behalf of ICAO given the importance of the Organization to his life and accomplishments in global aviation, President Aliu ended his words of thanks by expressing that it was his greatest hope that by his example he might encourage and motivate future graduates of Ukraine’s pre-eminent global civil aviation institute.
“I will forever be proud to serve as this school’s most enthusiastic ambassador and champion, wherever my travels may take me,” he concluded.
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