Just my 2c worth.
IMO, the single biggest reason for African Aviation being in the state its in is that there is
no political will to fix the problems, largely due to the fact that this would actually involve having to spend money on stuff, instead of syphoning it into one's off shore bank account like we've been doing all these years.
To most African transport ministeries all the ICAO/IATA/OAU air safety conferences are little more than an excuse to have a bit of a tax payer funded jolly , in a nice 5 star hotel with one's mates as well as frequenting a few titty bars along the way. Thats just before the delegates get together for a backslapping session where they all bullsh1t each other how well their respective countries are doing since the colonial powers left.
Very few of those delegates actually give a toss about their jobs as doing anything constructive towards aviation safety may actually involve having to do something called 'work' (
) which as we all know has not been done in many African governments since the colonial powers left years ago.
More so the fact that most heads of African Aviation authorities are political appointments based on ones party conections and has nothing to do with having come from an aviation background. Some African countries CAA chiefs would be hard pressed to be able to differentiate between a space shuttle and a Piper Cub for all they know about matters aeronautical.
The international community is wasting their time and money in trying to do anything too serious regarding improvement of aviation safety as long as incompetance is allowed to prevail in the running of African countries and their aviation ministeries.
We should first encourage regime change in the worst and most decrepid of these countries, install competant persons into their goverments and then we can move forward from there.
I know that this is a generalisation but apart from a very few countries who actually do have their act together, from my experience , this is the general state of things in most of Africa.