Last week IAPH held its Technical Committee Days in London for a second year in a row, with over 50 participants attending in person and approximately 150 members connecting to our thematic sessions on resilience, data collaboration and energy transition, as well as the committee meetings themselves. In addition to the IAPH regular ports and associate members, several UN agencies attended as speakers and participants, including IMO technical officers from marine environment, trade facilitation and maritime safety divisions, together with UNCTAD and UNECE representatives from Geneva and The World Bank. Also in active attendance were large beneficial cargo owners such as Cargill and IKEA Supply Chain as well as representatives from shipping organisations such as the International Chamber of Shipping and BIMCO. The World Economic Forum and the Women’s International Shipping & Trading Association also provided their contributions to a total of ten thematic parallel sessions over two days, with the committee meetings taking place on the final day. We are indebted to the TT Club for hosting us over the three days. We are very grateful to ambassador H. E. Bruno Van Der Pluijm of Belgium who hosted the IAPH reception in the Belgian embassy in Belgravia. We also would like to thank Julie Lithgow, clerk of the Company of Watermen and Lightermen, who organised the reception on the second day at the company’s historic headquarters by the Thames. Summaries of the committee meetings, as well as authorised materials, will be made available to members at a later date. Attendees agreed on continuing this format next year, with a focus on in-person attendance once a year to supplement the conference and multiple online technical and Harbour Café meetings. The TC Days serve as the ‘engine room’ of IAPH, which then delivers outputs to be showcased at the IAPH World Ports Conference in Hamburg between 8-10 October later this year.
