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Functional Maritime Security Enforcement Collaboration: Towards A Sustainable Blue Economy in Africa

Njoki Mboce
Ms. Njoki Mboce is a lawyer, consultant, academic and policy advisor. She has been a Visiting Fellow at the ALACUN Centre, IDSA, under the Africa Visiting Fellowship Programme. read more
Cover Story

Africa’s Majestic Maritime Space and its Vulnerabilities

The blue economy is often referred to as the “New Frontier of African Renaissance”.1 This comes as no surprise because Africa’s blue economy comprises an extensive ocean resource base as well as vast lakes and rivers.2 In fact, thirty-eight of the fifty-four African states are littoral.3 It is actually reported that maritime zones under Africa’s jurisdiction total about 13 million square kilometers including territorial seas and approximately 6.5 million square kilometers of the continental shelf. 4 Additionally, more than 90 per cent of Africa’s imports and exports are conducted by sea and some of the most strategic gateways for international trade are in Africa.5 This underscores the economic and geopolitical importance of the seas. Nevertheless and perhaps as a consequence of these majestic features, Africa’s maritime space is plagued by some major man-made security threats. Further, many of the threats continue to evolve as well as to transplant themselves in newer areas. For instance, while piracy appears to have been greatly suppressed in East African waters, it has become quite prominent in the West African waters, especially within the Gulf of Guinea.6 Fish poaching is yet another challenge. These threats hamper Africa’s sustainable blue economy. However, the good news is that there have been a significant rise in the number of regional initiatives for combating these threats.

The existing regional collaborative framework

 

Several collaborative regional engagements on maritime security have been initiated in Africa. They include adoption of regional strategies as well as frameworks and institutions. Some of the instruments that spell out the need and frameworks for such collaborations include the following:

  • African Ministerial Conference on the Environment (AMCEN) (1985).7
  • Indian Ocean Memorandum of Understanding on Port State Control (1998) whose ultimate goal is to identify and eliminate substandard ships from the region.8
  • New Partnership for Africa’s Development Planning and Coordinating Agency, established (NEPAD) (2001) re-named as African Union Development Agency-NEPAD (AUDA-NEPAD) in November 2018.9
  • Africa Ministers’ Council on Water (AMCOW) (2002).10
  • Southern Indian Ocean Fisheries Agreement (2006).11
  • Djibouti Code of Conduct (2009). 12
  • Amended Nairobi Convention for the Protection, Management and Development of the Marine and Coastal Environment of the Western Indian Ocean (2010).13 This is an amendment to the Original Convention for the Protection, Management and Development of the Marine and Coastal Environment of the Eastern African Region (1985).
  • Gaborone Declaration (2012), aimed at ensuring that contributions of natural capital to sustainable economic growth, maintenance and improvement of social capital and human well-being are quantified and integrated into development and business practice.14
  • 2050 Africa’s Integrated Maritime Strategy (2012).15
  • Agenda 2063 (2013).16 This is a 50 year strategic framework for the socio-economic transformation of the continent over.17 It builds on, and seeks to accelerate the implementation of past and existing continental initiatives for growth and sustainable development, such as the Lagos Plan of Action, the Abuja Treaty, the Minimum Integration Programme, the Programme for Infrastructural Development in Africa (PIDA), Regional Plans and Programmes and National Plans.18

Recent successes

The good news is that the African renaissance deriving from the blue economy has greatly enhanced Africa’s global position. Thus, Kenya hosted the first global conference on the sustainable blue economy, in Nairobi from November 26 to 28, 2018.19 The event attracted over 18,000 participants from around the world.20 Concrete commitments were made by various stakeholders, many of which were contained in a statement of intent.21 In February 2016, the potential power of the cooperative inter-regional maritime security architecture initiated by the Yaoundé Code of Conduct in June 2013 was clearly demonstrated.22 In this case involving M/T MAXIMUS, the navies of a number of regional states worked together to track and interdict a tanker that had been hijacked sixty miles off the coast of Cote d’Ivoire.23 The pirates were either killed or captured, the hostages freed, and the vessel was returned to its owner.24

Challenges

The foregoing discussion demonstrates the existence of a shared vison of a secure and sustainable blue economy, across Africa. Nevertheless, the following issues need to be addressed urgently.

  • The prevalence of a ‘silo approach’ domestically, regionally as well as internationally. Since compliance as well as operationalising of all these instruments depends on state commitments and every state and every region, is to a large extent operating in silos, it becomes practically challenging to efficiently combat maritime threats.
  • Divergent concepts of threats to maritime security and strategic priorities, leading to diverging priorities.
  • Limited capabilities and capacity, consequently, many African countries are unable to effectively govern most of their maritime territories.25
  • Limited political will to commit to and implement collaborative agreements.
  • Unstable governments, such as in Somalia, often leading to competing centres of governance exposed to external elements.26
  • Diverse, ever evolving, sophisticated, fluid and therefore cross-jurisdictional nature of maritime security threats.
  • Increasing cooperation among maritime criminals in Africa. 27
  • Increasingly sophisticated mechanics for engaging in maritime crime. This therefore frequently presents new challenges.
  • Sea-blindness among many African countries translates into minimal expectations from the maritime space. Subsequently, little focus is paid to the blue economy resources as compared to the attention and investment placed on land-based resources.
  • Dominance of the regional maritime threat perspective. This means that the interaction that many African countries have had with the sea has been in the context of maritime security threats, such as piracy. Therefore when many of the policy and law makers sit to make decisions regarding the maritime space, the decisions take a reactive ‘defence posture’, seeking to combat threats, as opposed to a proactive ‘wealth perspective’ seeking to harness the resources Africa needs to shift from the traditional approach of chasing after maritime security threats, to developing its maritime space.

Recommendations for a Way Forward

Despite the many practical justifications for holding back on collaboration, the need to combat maritime security threats as well as to sustainably optimise on the opportunities and gains far outweigh the challenges. Consequently, there is need for greater focus on a functional framework to establish a more collaborative, pro-active and adaptable enforcement system of maritime security. Some useful suggestions have already been made. These include first, a strengthening international and inter-agency intelligence collaboration to assist in risk mitigation against such violent and destabilising threats.28 The challenge facing this recommendation is mistrust, diversity and a lack of established security priorities and protocols.29 Second, a deliberate adjustment of the existing systems towards less burdensome network-based ones that can concentrate on issue-specific competencies and commonalties among states.30

There are however at least four other ways to circumvent the contentious issues and arrive at such a framework.

First, charting an Afro-centric agenda. To do this, Africa should adopt a more holistic and inward looking “maritime wealth perspective”, based on the following:

    • An assessment of, what Africa has, what Africa wants out of it and how to go about getting it. Africa will actually appreciate the great global potential that lies within the maritime space.
    • An assessment of terrain.
    • An assessment of threat(s).

Second, greater international multi-disciplinary research on the subject. Third, inter-national and inter-agency exchange of ideas. For instance, while Kenya is in the process of establishing her Coast Guard, countries such as South Africa and Mauritius have had a coast guard for more than 5 years. A lot of benefit can be drawn from a wider exchange on this among countries. And finally, empowering existing institutions such as the regional maritime rescue co-ordination centres.

Conclusion

There are several deficiencies in the existing collaborative framework, which hinders the growth of a sustainable blue economy in the region. To address this challenge, Africa needs to deliberately delineate her maritime interests. This requires a more Afro-centric focus on the potential, needs and subsequent functional arrangements. If this is not done, Africa will remain bereft of the fruits of her maritime labour.

Ms. Njoki Mboce is a lawyer, consultant, academic and policy advisor. She has been a Visiting Fellow at the ALACUN Centre, IDSA, under the Africa Visiting Fellowship Programme.

Keywords: Africa, Maritime Security
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