West, Central Africa ports management association: Technical Committees strategising to boost ports efficiency, sustainability.

The Minister of Transport, Jean Ernest Massena Ngale Bibehe, presided the opening ceremony, in the presence of the Secretary General of PMAWCA, Jean Marie Koffi; the Director General of National Ports Authority, known by its French acronym, APN, Tsanga Mba Willie, among other dignitaries.

In attendance are delegates and renowned experts from PMAWCA member countries including Mauritania, The Gambia, Liberia, Togo, Mozambique, Cabo Verde, Guinea Bissau, Congo Brazzaville, Sierra Leone, Guinea Conakry, Ghana, Nigeria, Niger, Equatorial Guinea, Angola, Cote D’Ivoire, and Cameroon.

In his address at the opening ceremony, the Director General of APN, Tsanga Mba Willie, said the Cameroon government accords and lot of importance to port development and regional cooperation in West and Central Africa. 

He said the structural role of maritime and ports in the economies of member countries cannot be overstated, with 95% of external commercial exchanges transiting through these ports in West and Central Africa.

“These infrastructures thus constitute veritable backbones of our economy and essential levers of our growth and privileged vectors of regional integration,” he said.

“Their modernisation, attractivity, competitivity and durability are not just simple technical stakes, but are at the heart of strategic development of our countries,” Tsanga averred. 

He added that the interest to ameliorate technical consultations fall within profound and accelerated context known in the world of transport in general and maritime and port sector in particular.

“The digital revolution, energy transition, evolution of world logistics chains and emergence of new commercial forces impose on our ports the need to permanently adapt and putting in place new management and exploitation models,” he affirmed.

He thus said ports must reinforce their competitivity to advantageously position themselves in world trade and take advantage of opportunities offered.

“Unprecedented regional integration presents a decisive situation for our economies and our ports as essential vectors. It is within this context that these meetings of Technical Committees are holding,” he added.

Tsanga said discussions during the various meetings will centre on modernisation of infrastructures to reinforce competitivity of ports, sustainable valourisation of port sector, modernisation of legal and finance administration.

For his part, the Secretary General of PMAWCA, Jean Marie Koffi, said the ‘Administrative and Legal Affairs’ and ‘Finances and Economics Studies’ committees will use the meetings to look at how ports can implement programmes concerning issues such as green energy and environmental concerns.

“Experts from our ports have to discuss these issues so we can find ways of surmounting challenges in these areas. Also, for us to get finances, we need to implement programmes in this light,” he stated.

Koffi said for ports to be competitive, there has to be the implementation of Maritime Single Window.

“In this Maritime Single Window, it means that we have one point and the outcome will be same for all the ports. All the ports in our region have to adopt Maritime Single Window. With this, there will be one entry and one outcome. This is very important. It will enable us prevent all the disruptions we are facing. We can prevent fraud, among others,” he added.

In his opening address, the Minister of Transport, Jean Ernest Massena Ngale Bibehe, said since the creation of the association in 1972, PMAWCA federates ports in the subregion for good practices in terms of management and exploitation, in a bid to improve efficiency.

He saluted the commitment of the General Manager of APN, “who, in direct collaboration with the PMAWCA secretariat, has ensured a hitch-free holding of these meetings here in Yaounde”.

New paradigms in ports management

He said the discussions during the meeting will be levers to elevate the ports in West and Central Africa to the world environment through sharing of expertise and experience “on the new paradigms in port management”. 

These new paradigms, he stated, include decarbonisation, digitalisation, automation, and sustainability of ports.  

“It is also an opportunity for our region to elaborate common proposals to make to larger bodies such as the International Maritime Organisation,” he stated. 

It should be noted that PMAWCA was established under the auspices of the Economic Commission for Africa, UNECA, and it covers the seaports located along the West Coast of Africa including Mauritania and Angola. 

The shipping area covers a coastline about 12,000 km. Its ports handle about 300 million tons of maritime import/export trade for the sub-region excluding crude oil. The Association’s membership has grown from just nine since inception, to forty members as of 2018.

This article was first published in The Guardian Post Edition No:3727 of Tuesday March 10, 2026