The IAPH has declared a new strategic course of action with technical committees to focus on climate and energy, data collaboration and risk and resilience.
Further to IAPH joining the IMO-Norway GreenVoyage2050 project, the new climate and energy committee focus will be to unite all energy-transition and environmental-related port initiatives under one umbrella, serving as conduit to global maritime policymaking at IMO level.
Following the successful launch of a port survey on the status of electronic data exchange capabilities, the new data collaboration committee will focus on the action points of the cross-party industry joint call for action to accelerate the pace of digitalisation following the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak. It will also work closely on the IMO FAL convention, and provide further guidance on cybersecurity and automation as well as encouraging technological innovation through startups.
The risk and resilience Committee will be the permanent successor to the WPSP-IAPH COVID19 Task Force with the same expert IAPH members who produced the COVID19 guidance document for ports as well as the COVID19 port economic impact barometer reports for industry-wide use. Its main focus will be to assist ports in long-term business continuity policymaking, as well as working on critical issues such as dangerous goods handling, climate change preparedness and anti-corruption.
To enable this work, the IAPH Board has restructured the staff and resources in Japan and Europe into two complementary operational units, a finance and administration unit led by the secretary general Dr Masahiko Furuichi and a policy and strategy unit led by the managing director Dr Patrick Verhoeven.
