Advocacy and Public Outreach
The Secretariat introduced several innovations in the area of advocacy and public outreach in 2018.
Enhancements to strategies supporting the promotion of ICAO to journalists resulted in major coverage of ICAO’s aviation advocacy in all world regions and in all six official languages. Reports regularly focused on the crucial importance of ICAO compliance and alignment to the sustainable development of aviation, and the pivotal role of air connectivity to global, national and local sustainable development. These were often in relation to remarks delivered at ICAO events or delivered by ICAO’s leadership at the high-level conferences and bilateral meetings.
In 2018, particular highlights included reports resulting from the 13th Air Navigation Conference, the 2nd Next Generation of Aviation Professionals Global Summit (NGAP/2), the 4th ICAO World Aviation Forum, and the Global Aviation Gender Summit. The results featured in ICAO’s 2017 Aviation Safety Report and the Organization’s counter-terrorism and drone-related work also sparked significant coverage.
ICAO continued to review the supporting role of social media and implemented new approaches in alignment with emerging best practices. This included the adoption of distinct editorial approaches for each of ICAO’s three main social media channels,
- LinkedIn (102 000 followers), which is now focused as a forum for professional development and aviation advocacy.
- Facebook (72 000 followers), a magazine-style approach offering content about aviation, ICAO, and the United Nations that has been adapted for the general public.
- Twitter (83 700 followers), providing real-time news and commentary, and content designed to encourage participation.
In some cases, this has resulted in a five-fold increase in “engagement”, which is a measure of the influence of a given publication. The three accounts attracted a total of 67 600 new followers in 2018.
ICAO also launched two new social media channels in 2018 – a dedicated Twitter channel for French and Spanish, and an Instagram account.
These developments were made possible as a result of heightened coordination between ICAO's COM and RPM sections and the Regional Offices.
The Strategic Planning, Coordination and Partnerships (SPCP) advocacy work resulted in the International Transport Forum (ITF) joining efforts to showcase ICAO’s work in security, safety and efficiency. ICAO’s Secretary General spoke at the official opening of the Summit and introduced a panel discussion on “Protecting the Skies with Secure and Efficient Air Travel”. The ITF Ministerial Declaration makes clear reference to its support for further improvements in aviation safety and security, including through the work of ICAO. ICAO’s outreach resulted in ICAO having an active voice at the 2018 Toronto Women’s Forum and an opportunity to provide insights on how organizers could challenge the G7 to not only take on the issue of gender equality, but to unlock the transformative potential of women’s leadership with the goal of having an impact on decision-makers.
Furthermore, ICAO and Airbus signed a Letter of Intent of collaboration, with a focus on building the capacity of young people in the critical role of aviation as an enabler of SDGs. More specifically, ICAO and Airbus intend to work together, in cooperation with UNESCO, to identify ways that will allow for the expansion of the “Fly your Ideas” competition. Through this collaboration, current and future generations of young women and men will be motivated to pursue a career in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM), including aviation. The roll-out of the ICAO/Airbus collaboration will include a special focus on gender equality opportunities.
ICAN facility
The eleventh ICAO Air Services Negotiation Event (ICAN2018) was held in Nairobi, Kenya, from 10 to 14 December 2018. This event was attended by delegates from 70 States/territories and 460 formal and informal bilateral meetings were conducted, which led to the signing or initialling of over 400 agreements (including many open skies agreements), and arrangements (such as Memoranda of Understanding, Records of Meeting or Agreed Minutes). ICAN 2018 had a roundtable discussion session on the theme “Benefits of liberalization of International Air Transport: Special focus on air cargo services”. The presentations and interactive panel discussions underscored the need for all stakeholders to appreciate the distinctive nature of air cargo services and work together to remove operational and regulatory impediments to international air cargo services. Workshops were also conducted by ICAO/IATA, the Civil Air Navigation Services Organisation (CANSO) and the Kenya Civil Aviation Authority (KCAA). ICAO participated actively in the various workshops using them to promote ICAO’s policies on international air transport.
