Maj Gen Karamba highlights the new era for African air defences at Aviation Africa Summit

Kigali, 27 February 2019

The Rwanda Defence Force Air Force Chief of Staff, Maj Gen Charles Karamba was among the key speakers at the 4th Aviation Africa Summit in Kigali, where he highlighted the new era for African air defences.

During his presentation, Maj Gen Karamba reminded participants at this summit that Africa has recorded a number of threats that require to effectively have means to deal with them, and one way of dealing with the evolving threats is through the modernisation of the military capabilities.

“Many countries have made modernization of their military technologies as one of the four pillars of their military capability alongside force structure, readiness and sustainability. Air Defence, a branch of Military modernisation is seen as bridge to success in controlling diverse threats for common interest,” he said.

Maj Gen Karamba emphasised that African States need to work together, with interoperable and integrated systems that would offer continental-wide air defence capability, adding that traditionally, countries designed their air defence for use against foreign conventional threats.  These threats primarily consisted of attacks by military aircraft, helicopters and missiles.

He further noted that air defence challenges are still considerable in most African nations, arguing that they can be overcome through careful and coordinated investments and cooperation. 

“This will require political will, resources, adequate training but most importantly visionary leadership. To create a future free sky, Africa must create interoperable, replicable, inclusive, and traceable oversight that enables innovation while mitigating risk,” he added.

Officially opened by President Paul Kagame, under the theme ‘Flying forward together – developing partnerships for Africa’s future skies’ the two-day civil aviation African summit brings together leaders across the civil and military aviation industry to discuss and debate the key issues that are driving change across the African continent.

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