“People consider the SAATM (single African Air Transport Market) and the agenda of Africa's liberalization as the Big Bang. One day we will wake up, everything will be fixed and the entire continent will be connected overnight.
“But that's not like the Big Bang theory,” AFCAC executive director Adefunke Adeyemi said of the creation of a liberalised air transport market across the continent's 55 states.
She doesn't love anything better than the Swish of the Magic Wand to Guide the SAATM, but the political and operational reality of Africa means it's a marathon that's not a sprint to win the SAATM on the line. “It's all the small steps that contribute to that outcome,” she explained.
Adeyemi was elected executive director in September 2022 with a ticket to bring new driving forces to AFCAC and SAATM. How does she judge the progress her team is making?
“I like to think we're making progress,” she insisted. “Number one, has promoted an increase in connectivity supported through various interventions. 97 new routes have been launched over the past two years, of which 18 are the fifth free route.
“We have supported the regulatory environment through YD (Yamassoukro decision) compliant aviation services contract templates and guidelines to grant market access between countries. We support the guidelines on economic regulation. We support through engagement with local economic communities.
The keyword here is support or facilitation, as the AFCAC is the specialized agency of the African Union for all civil aviation issues on the African continent, the Yamuscro decision (YD) and the SAATM executive agency, not in itself a civil aviation authorities.
YD is a declaration made in 1988 to liberalize the African air transport market. But for years, it wasn't much more than that – a declaration.
The African Union launched SAATM in 2018 as the flagship project of “Agenda 2063” and established a single unified air transport market in Africa, liberalising Africa's civil aviation under YD, and served as a driving force for the continent's economic integration agenda.
But it is a slow process, and Adeyemi is strongly supported by the African government to win reelection to the AFCAC post, and has the energy and experience to drive it.
Defining a strategy
Adeyemi's political sensibility means that she will not criticize her predecessor when she takes the reins at the AFCAC. However, it was clear that we needed to refocus and reset in order to “ensure that we can fulfill our mission.”
“In my first year, it was important to take a strategic approach to building a strong team, building a strong co-aini initiative, building on the shoulders of those who came before me both at the SG and the bureau level,” she said.
The AFCAC Committee held a very important retreat in early 2023 and broke the plan. “We looked at our strategic priorities and identified them with clear, measurable targets about what we wanted to achieve and what we wanted to offer,” she explained. This process was repeated in 2024 and in 2025 with a new station.
Although this interview focuses on SAATM priorities, AFCAC's mission spans safety, security, infrastructure, sustainability and skill development (see Box Story).
These will be appropriately prioritized in the work of the AFCAC, but the comprehensive importance of a single air in Africa cannot be overstated. “Under the YD framework, we believe that SAATM is the only developmental mandatory and most important developmental obligation to socioeconomic development in Africa,” Adeyemi said.
Africa misses the role that air transport plays in other parts of the world, creating a more integrated and more prosperous continent, she said. “Aviation is not necessarily considered a pillar of strategic development in most African countries, so it is seriously developed for two main reasons,” she said.
“Secondly, aviation is considered a kind of luxury and therefore needs to move towards the pillar of mass development.” This requires a change in the way it thinks with aviation, which many consider elitist or unattainable.
SAATM-PIP Release
The rapid implementation initiative of YD through SAATM came about after a brainstorming session between Adeemi and her team just two months after joining in November 2022.
“We talked about what we can do to transform this issue with YD and SAATM and actually get some traction around it. It was not possible for all 55 African countries to go at the same pace at the same time,” she explained. “So we said people who were ready and willing to be capable.
The SAATM pilot implementation project was invented. “The target and idea was to accelerate the implementation of YD. It wasn't about coming up with yet another acronym or another initiative. I'll come up with this approach and see how connectivity can improve and support it in different parts of Africa.”
Since the launch of SAATM-PIP, 21 countries have signed up to participate representing more than 80% of the market in passenger numbers. These countries can be placed in six clusters.
Sign up and implementation are different, but there have been a total of eight pips over the past two years, Adeyemi said.
PIP is very involved, with the highest level of stakeholders becoming president of the country. This essential buy-in brings a huge range of stakeholder commitments from the government, along with ministries responsible for transportation/airport, trade, finance, interior affairs, tourism and information.
Cast of operational stakeholders from airports, airlines, ANSPs, ground services, immigration, customs, revenue authorities and tourism boards.
Using the July 2024 PIP example held at Sierra Leone, “The focus of the SAATM-PIP Air Show is to ensure that each selected state within the cluster matches the ASA template that matches the AFCAC YD-compatible ASA template.
The PIP also promotes the use of YD/SAATM regulations and the use of African Civil Aviation Policy (AFCAP) and ASA guidelines with partners outside of Africa.
The first pip was held at the AFCAC home in Senegal, while others were held in Nigeria, Ethiopia, Namibia, Mozambique, Gambia and Sierra Leone. South Africa is being prepared for pip, but Egypt, Zambia and Uganda are also on the list this year, Adeemi said.
Support Roles
She notes to explain that the role of the AFCAC is one of promotion, guidance and engagement. “I say there is a starting point and market access. I have a template that is YD compliant. I have a dispute resolution mechanism set up.
With PIPs going on, there is no guarantee that the state will open up a market, but the 97 new routes have concrete results. These are international routes where airlines add foot to services to third countries.
The aim is to promote direct services, but the reality in Africa means that on low and thin routes, a fifth freedom is important to “increase traffic along the way and make operational routes feasible,” Adeyemi said.
After the launch of SAATM-PIP, AFCAC began tweaking its approach in 2024 to become increasingly involved in the AU's existing local economic community bloc, she explained. For example, Sierra Leone Pip invited all members of the Banjul Accord Group of States.
The AFCAC aims to cooperate with 30% by 2027 through the fifth free route between countries working through the SAATM-PIP methodology. It has already risen from 15% in 2019 to 21% in 2024.
State support
At the Air Africa Summit held in Johannesburg in September 2024, Poppyhoza, Director of the Civil Aviation Bureau of South Africa, asked the AFCAC to be given a “teeth” to promote the liberalization of African Air Transport and implement the SAATM.
Adeyemi welcomed such support. “We are beginning to see very important and important changes not just in our thinking, but in the policies and decisions that are taking place throughout our state.”
This accelerated following the powerful advocacy drive across the AFCAC continent over the past few years, bringing increased technical assistance to the state and seeing the start of the SAATM-PIP process.
However, Adeyemi acknowledged that not all countries are ready for this aviation. “For many people, aviation is not the top of the agenda. It could be food, or education or safety. These are the foundations of the present. At the cabinet level, aviation is not necessarily worth prioritizing.”
For her, it is important that AFCAC creates an enablement environment for those who want to prioritize aviation.
And by securing another terminology, she has the help of taking over. “We're going to keep working, we use our stubbornness to steal it, we're going to advocate, we're going to change our mindset,” she said. “It's going to take us where we need it.”
