ASECNA is a public establishment with legal status and financial autonomy. The establishment was born thanks to 14 African countries, in association with France, who were willing to pool material, human and financial resources together, so as to guarantee the regularity in destination services, aircraft flight safety as well as air traffic in general within the member states, and to manage their airspace and those for which they were providing air traffic and aviation weather services to.

 The act ratifies the creation of  ASECNA is the St. Louis Convention signed on the 12 of December 1959, in Saint Louis - Senegal. This Convention was however abrogated on October 25, 1974 in Dakar to make way for what is better known today as "Dakar Convention." Cameroon ratified the 1974 Convention in Dakar.

Successive amendments were made on the Convention to enable the integration of new the following countries: Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Comoros, Congo, Côte d'Ivoire, France, Guinea Bissau, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Mali, Niger, Mauritania, Madagascar, Senegal, Chad and Togo. The headquarters of ASECNA is located in Dakar. However, each Member State has a home office headed by a Representative of the Director General. The ASECNA office in Cameroon is based in Douala.

Under Article two of the Dakar Agreement, the three international airports in Cameroon (Douala, Garoua and Yaounde Nsimalen) were entrusted to the technical department which coordinate the community activities of ASECNA. The same goes with radio Vent (weather radio station) of the air striping Ngaoundere. Other airports carry out national activities within the framework of Article 10 of the Convention. Therefore, the technical control of these other airports could be handed to ASECNA at any time when it comes to a particular contract between the state and the latter.

In Cameroon, The Minister of Transport ensures the protection of ASECNA. The administration and control of civil aviation is run by the Cameroon Civil Aviation Authority the CCAA in charge of the administration and/or control of civil aviation activities, including those of ASECNA and the other operators in the aviation sector dealing witch air safety, air navigation and civil aviation security.

 
Jean Pierre KOUOGUEU
Civil Aviation Engineer
Deputy Director for Air Traffic CCAA