The International Air Transport Association (IATA), Airports Council International- Africa (ACI Africa) and the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) Regional Offices for African States are united in their call to governments in Africa to rapidly implement ICAO’s global guidelines for restoring air connectivity to ensure the safe and harmonised restart of aviation in the region. These guidelines are contained in Takeoff: Guidance for Air Travel through the COVID-19 Public Health Crisis, which was approved by the ICAO Council. They have also been adopted into the African Union’s Restart and Recovery Strategies during and after COVID-19 for the African Aviation Sector.
“Developed based on the latest medical evidence and consistent with health best practices the ICAO Take-off guidance provides governments with a framework for restarting aviation while protecting public health. Governments in Africa are encouraged to implement the guidance urgently and in a harmonised and mutually recognised way to allow aviation to safely start contributing to Africa’s economic recovery post COVID-19. Air connectivity is critical to economic and sustainable development in and across the continent,” said Barry Kashambo, Regional Director, ESAF speaking on behalf of the ICAO Regional Offices accredited to African States.
“ICAO’s Take-off guidance is a global way forward for aviation. Implementation should give governments the confidence to open borders without quarantine, and passengers the confidence to fly. But guidelines mean nothing if they are not implemented. And that is our main message to governments in Africa. Deviations from the guidance and mandatory approaches, especially on quarantine and social distancing, will damage public confidence, make it harder to operate effectively, slow down the industry restart and increase the economic pressures already created by COVID-19. This would be harmful to public health and the economic recovery,” said Muhammad Albakri, IATA’s Regional Vice President for Africa and the Middle East.
“Safety and security remain the industry’s main priority, and both are firmly entrenched into every airport’s operations and corporate culture. Building on this track record, the ICAO Take-off guidance is fully aligned with our industry’s focus on passenger and staff wellbeing. We therefore urge African States to urgently adopt these guidelines so that we can ensure the implementation of consistent, harmonised and effective measures across the region, a prerequisite for passengers to return to air travel in all confidence, and for the swift restoration of air connectivity for the sustainable recovery of the travel, business and tourism sectors on the continent,” said Ali Tounsi Secretary General, ACI Africa.
COVID-19 has crippled the air transport industry in Africa. Demand is forecast to fall by 58.5% in 2020 year-on-year – the largest drop of all the regions. Airlines in the region are expected to post a net loss of $2 billion this year as passenger revenues decline by over $6 billion compared to the previous year. Concurrently, African airports are expected to lose 51% of their revenues in 2020, i.e., around $2.2 billion. Job losses in aviation and related industries in the region could reach 3.1 million and GDP supported by aviation could fall by $28 billion. Before the COVID-19 crisis, aviation supported 6.2 million jobs in the region and generated $55.8 billion in GDP.
The ICAO Guidance proposes a layered and phased approach to restarting aviation and identifies a set of generally applicable risk-based measures. In line with recommendations and guidance from public health authorities, these will mitigate the risk of transmission of the COVID-19 virus during the travel process.
ICAO, IATA and ACI Africa also pledged their commitment to providing support to industry stakeholders in the region to help ensure implementation and compliance with the recommended ICAO Take-off guidance. This includes the development of more detailed operational procedures in four specific areas – Airport, Aircraft, Crew and Cargo – based on the Take-off guidance.
“Restarting international connectivity safely while ensuring that aviation is not a meaningful source for the spread of COVID-19 is not an option but a must. Aviation is facing the biggest challenge of its history; we need all hands-on deck to get the industry up and running again and we are committed to making the journey as seamless and risk-free as possible. We will collaborate with and support states to implement these guidelines in the fastest and most efficient way and encourage governments and other industry stakeholders to reach out to us for support,” said Albakri.
IATA, ACI Africa, ICAO, the African Union, African Civil Aviation Commission (AFCAC), Africa Airlines Association (AFRAA) Airlines Association of Southern Africa (AASA) and CANSO are working closely to support the safe restart of the industry in Africa.
African Aviation Industry calls for harmonised safe restart of air services
Report identifies problems in big tech content moderation, calls for an end to outsourcing
The NYU Stern Center for Business and Human Rights released a new report on the approach to content moderation taken by major social media companies, including Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. The report, “Who Moderates the Social Media Giants? A Call to End Outsourcing,” presents new findings about how big tech firms regulate the content that appears on their platforms; identifies major problems with the platforms’ current approach; and makes concrete recommendations for reforms.
Facebook, YouTube and Twitter outsource most of their human content moderation-the job of deciding what stays online and what gets taken down-to third-party contractors, which creates a marginalized class of reviewers who are seen as “second-class citizens.” The NYU report finds that the peripheral status of moderators has contributed to inadequate attention being paid to incendiary content spread in developing countries, sometimes leading to violence offline. Outsourcing has also contributed to the provision of subpar mental health support for content moderators who spend their days staring at disturbing material.
Paul Barrett, deputy director of the NYU Stern Center for Business and Human Rights told Capital that the report finds social media companies lack local expertise in countries like Ethiopia. “They should hire more Ethiopians with broad language skills and a solid grasp of the country’s culture” Barrett said.
“Online speech foments ethnic and religious violence and hostilities, one thing social media companies can do is to remove content that is false and may lead to physical harm,” he further added.
Focusing primarily on Facebook, the report found that every day, three million Facebook posts are flagged for review by 15,000 moderators. The company has admitted to at least a 10 percent error rate in making content decisions, which suggests 300,000 mistakes a day. At Facebook, outsourced content moderation takes place in more than 20 sites worldwide.
“The report finds that Facebook and others rely on unpaid local activists and NGOs to monitor online speech, but often ignore their warnings. There have been communication breakdowns and inattentiveness. Facebook says this is changing-that it is listening more closely to its partners on the ground. Perhaps the company has learned from past experience. But all of these problems have not been fully solved,” the deputy director told Capital via email.
“Social media companies cannot cure all societal ills, including the incitement of violence. These companies need to do more to ensure against the misuse of their platforms. But there is a big role for civil society organizations, journalism outfits, and, in some cases, the government, in fostering civility and diminishing the influence of bad actors. Political leaders must come together and get behind education efforts aimed at enlightening social media users and all citizens,” Barrett said.
The report also calls on big tech to invest more in countries like Ethiopia to prevent violence from spreading virally.
“More attentive content moderation and fact-checking, more social media literacy training, and more support for public-spirited journalism and civil society activity should be done,” Barrett said.
In recent months, the coronavirus pandemic has exacerbated problems with content moderation. As content moderators have sheltered in place at home, without access to secure computers, social media companies, including Facebook, announced that they would rely more on AI to remove harmful content. The result has been that the platforms have mistakenly taken down some legitimate content from healthcare professionals and others, whose posts were mistakenly flagged for removal.
“The widespread practice of relying on third-party vendors for content review amounts to an outsourcing of responsibility for the safety of major social media platforms and their billions of users,” said Paul Barrett adding “the results of this practice range from moderators not receiving the caliber of mental health care they deserve, to real-world violence in some countries where insufficient moderation leads to hateful content remaining online.”
This report involved dozens of interviews with executives from Facebook and other tech firms, as well as with former content moderators operating in the U.S. and Europe; scholars and researchers studying the issue; and on-the-ground activists and NGOs.
Africa In the fight against COVID-19, an unsung continent
By Solomon Zewdu
Two months ago, when the peak of the pandemic passed in China and moved to the United States and Western Europe, epidemiologists tried to predict where COVID-19 would hit next-and hit hardest. Many thought Africa would become the next high-risk area, but when COVID-19 eventually arrived on the continent, most of the dire predictions were way off.
Today, the continent is the least impacted region in the world according to the World Health Organization (WHO), with less than 5% of reported cases and less than 1% of all deaths, despite being 17% of the global population. (By contrast, the U.S. is 4% of the global population but has suffered 25% of COVID-19 deaths.)
Of course, the pandemic isn’t over and things are evolving, but the predictions missing the mark so widely has left modelers and public health experts scratching their heads. Why has Africa witnessed a much milder pandemic than elsewhere?
People have proposed many theories. Some point to Africa’s relative youth: While nearly 95% of COVID-19 deaths in Europe were people over 60, Africa’s median age is only 19, and 60% of the continent is under 25. Others suggest Africa’s low case counts are a mirage, and that we aren’t seeing the true data because of limited testing capacity and mortality tracking. There is a lot, the argument goes, that we still don’t know.
Here’s my sense of the issue: What we don’t know about Africa and COVID-19 is far less important than what we do know. Because the things we do know are amazing and important and have surely contributed to Africa’s overall success in weathering this disease.
We know, for instance, that in January, even as many Western nations hesitated, Ethiopia began intensive screening at Addis Ababa airport. We also know that Africa CDC created its COVID-19 task force on February 5, before the continent had a single case. We know that Rwanda became the first African nation to lock down on March 21st and that many other African countries soon followed: South Africa implemented its comprehensive lockdown when it had only 400 cases and two fatalities. (With a similar-sized population, Italy had more than 9,000 cases and 400 deaths when it acted.)
In short, when the threat of COVID-19 arose, almost all 55 nations on the African continent acted swiftly to stop its spread. They did so in the face of great economic risk-more than 80% of Africa’s population work in the informal sector, often living on daily earnings-and with far more limited resources than the United States and Europe. And because those regions had to focus on their own crises, Africa responded, for the most part, alone.
African heads of state deserve much credit, but this swift and effective response was only possible because of the support and sacrifice of the people. Tens of thousands of health workers fanned out across the continent, taking temperatures and screening for the disease. In research labs and businesses of every size, people got to work. Scientists in Senegal developed a $1 COVID-19 testing kit and used 3D printing to make ventilators. In Nigeria, tailors sewed masks and personal protective equipment (PPE).
And of course, millions of everyday African citizens did their part, too. Many stayed indoors, halting the normal rhythms of their lives at great personal cost. Some struggled to get prescriptions refilled or receive routine health care. Others lost jobs and income. But so far, the continent has by and large averted disaster.
There are three lessons, I think, the world can take away from this remarkable story.
The first is obvious, and it’s that screening, tracing, and social distancing measures work, especially when implemented quickly. It’s widely agreed that South Africa’s strict lockdown bought critical time to prepare health systems and flattened the COVID-19 curve.
The second lesson involves Africa’s recent history. The continent’s experience in fighting other outbreaks has helped it fight this one. For example, Sierra Leone and Liberia used what they learned during the 2014 Ebola epidemic about building contact tracing networks and quickly implemented them to track COVID-19. In other places across the continent, people readily adopted non-pharmaceutical interventions despite PPE shortages, which people in Western countries were slow to do.
Third, and finally, Africa in the age of COVID-19 has shown the world a powerful and counterintuitive fact: Nations don’t necessarily have to be wealthy to stay healthy. Of course, a strong economy helps build a strong health system. But smart policies, early action, committed health workers, and engaged communities matter just as much.
This doesn’t mean it’s time for complacency now. Numbers are rising and it could be some time before a safe and effective vaccine is developed and widely distributed. The story of this pandemic is far from over, and Africa’s leaders and citizens must continue to chart a course that protect lives as it rebuilds economies. Still, the continent’s performance so far is an early bright spot. Africa deserves the world’s recognition and is a reason to be hopeful as we move forward.
Solomon Zewdu is Deputy Director for Global Development in Ethiopia & Africa Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
