UNCTAD TRAINS 23 IN PORT MANAGEMENT (PAGE 55)

THE Training and Capacity Development section of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) has opened a five-day training programme for 23 personnel engaged in port management to begin a two-year training cycle.
Ghana is the first English-speaking West African country to benefit from module one of the programme designed by the UNCTAD in collaboration with the Dublin Port Company to ensure efficiency and improvement in port operations.
The participants were drawn from Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority (GPHA), Shippers Council, Regional Maritime University, Customs, Excise and Preventive Service (CEPS), Advanced Stevedores and MoL Ghana Ltd.
The programme is to improve on the capacity of the participants, as well as make them become trainers of trainers in a series of training courses that will be run on eight modular series in two years.
At the inaugural launch of the programme, the Project Officer in charge of Train for Trade Programme of UNCTAD, Mr Mark Assaf, said the main objective of the programme was to promote the integration of developing countries into the world economy, to help shape the current policy debates.
Mr Assaf said the policy focused on ensuring that domestic and international actions were mutually supportive in bringing about sustainable development to make progress towards the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals.
He said UNCTAD had provided continuous support to member states in the field of transport and port activities through research, consensus building and technical assistance.
Mr Assaf noted that specific programmes at UNCTAD had dedicated resources and efforts to sustain activities in the field of trade facilitation, transport and logistics, customs modernisation policy and legislation.
He said port communities around the world had a vital role to play in attracting trade flows and contributing to the development of their national economies.
Mr Assaf urged port communities to foster economic development by providing efficient and competitive services to facilitate trade.
The acting Director-General of the GPHA, Mr Nestor Galley, said the authority in conjunction with UNCTAD, would continue to commit resources to the development of human resources and skills to achieve its vision of becoming the most preferred port in the West African sub-region.
The Local UNCTAD Co-ordinator, Mr Alphonse Wordi, and three others made up of Mr Richard Acquah, Mr Komieteh Botchway and Ms Perpetual Osei Bonsu, were the first to attend the first training of trainers workshop in Dublin with the support of Irish Aid under UNCTAD-Dublin Port Company co-operation.
They would form the core human resource base for the local training programme to impart what they learnt in Dublin to their colleagues in Ghana.