Kofi Ampeah Woode
The Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre (KAIPTC) has commenced a 5-day training workshop dubbed Developing Security Culture in the Gulf of Guinea (GoG) for the Government of Togo, to build competencies of her various maritime agencies, to support the implementation of national and regional maritime security policies, as well as deepen inter-agency collaboration and the pooling of resources to contribute to a safer maritime domain.
The capacity development Course, which is also to enrich the country’s experts’ knowledge on current maritime security trends in the GoG, and hosted by Togo’s Haut Conseil pour la Mer (High Council for the Sea), opened at the IOKA Hotel, Lomé, Togo, with the Commandant, KAIPTC – Major General (Maj Gen) Richard Addo Gyane, as the Guest of Honour, leading a team of experts from the KAIPTC to the ceremony, on Monday 8 May, 2023.
Delivering his opening address, Maj Gen RA Gyane, gave a descript of the GoG and said, the maritime domain is a very critical commercial route for oil and gas supplies, as well as other goods, in addition to traffic from fishing vessels, tankers and cargo ships.
He said countries in the GoG have continued to grapple with maritime crimes, including piracy and armed robbery at sea, and other maritime security challenges, and that in the past decade and half, and up until late 2021, high incidents of pirate attacks, armed robbery at sea and its associated violence, had earned the GoG the notorious title of the world’s piracy hotspot.
General Gyane continued that between 2010 and 2021, the International Maritime Bureau (IMB), recorded a total of about 623 attacks alone in the GoG, leading to 648 crew kidnapped for ransom. These attacks inevitably contributed to increased cost of transportation of goods and commodities to the maritime region, which in turn has led to increase in the prices of imported goods, and also resulted in increased risk for seafarers being kidnapped for ransom.
The Ghana Army (GA) General went on to say that, some improvements have been recorded in terms of decreased number of attacks, as 21 incidents were recorded in 2021, compared to 97 incidents in the previous year. Further, in 2022, the IMB recorded the lowest number of reported incidents for the first half of any year since 1994. Out of the 58 incidents reported globally in the first 6 months of 2022, 12 were reported in the GoG of which 10 were armed robberies.
He however called on all actors in the domain to remain vigilant and be cautiously optimistic, noting that the areas of risk, do shift, citing the last two incidents off the coast of Pointe Noire, Congo Brazzaville, and Cote d’Ivoire in March and April 2022, respectively, where pirates were deemed to have reacted to intense pressure from Nigeria’s policing of its waters, and looked for ‘softer targets’ to prey on.
A shared response in preventing and mitigating maritime crimes results in the development of a shared maritime security culture in the GoG, which culture is predicated on trust, confidence building and information sharing, collective action and greater participation of all maritime stakeholders particularly non-traditional actors, thr Commandant said. Thus, the importance for maritime actors to continue to receive training on best practices on maritime security issues.
Togo’s Director, State Action at Sea (l’action de l’etat en Mer – Mr Akakpo Binessi Komlan, in a speech, said the GoG is a vast area comprising 19 West and Central African coastal countries that share a coastline of nearly 6,000 km, from the coast of Senegal to Angola, covering two vast geographic, political, and economic regions.
He continued that every day, nearly 4,000 ships transit through the GoG domain, which is located at the crossroads of major maritime routes, and houses the two main oil producers in Africa – Nigeria and Angola.
He furthered that the causes of insecurity at sea, combine as a hybridization of threats involving arms, drugs, human trafficking, terrorist activities, and illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing, which alone accounts for 400 million tonnes of fishery products, representing a loss of $1.5 billion annually.
Mr Komlan further stated that long-term factors also make the GoG, a potentially conflict-ridden geographic area: the likely collapse of fish stocks or the disappearance of certain species within a decade if nothing is done, combined with a doubling of the population by 2050, raising concerns about future food crises and destabilization of societies in the coastal countries, which could, among other things, exacerbate migration phenomena.
He said Togo has launched vast legal and institutional reforms in the maritime domain since 2014, and that the effective implementation of these reforms requires human resources, with knowledge and skills in the field, whose technical capacities must be constantly strengthened, for which reason, the training workshop comes at the right time, to enhance the capacities of maritime security actors.
He concluded that the training would 1) Provide an overview of the challenges, threats, and impact of maritime security in the region; 2) Improve regional and national knowledge of maritime security frameworks and mechanisms designed to address these challenges; 3) Deepen understanding of role of maritime security actors to prevent maritime crime and threats, and 4) Strengthen understanding of the importance of collaborative, coordinated, and inter-agency cooperation efforts to ensure maritime security and safety.
The training course is funded by the Danish Government in partnership with the KAIPTC to implement phase III of the Danish Maritime Security project, under which is a 5-year project on: ‘Integrated Responses to Threats to Maritime Safety and Security in the GoG in West and Central Africa (2022-2026)’. It represents the first of a series of training courses to be implemented under the project and the first to be conducted in Togo.
It leverages on the experiences of phase II of the Danish maritime security project on ‘Enhancing Regional Research, Capacity Building and Convening of Stakeholders Towards a Safer Maritime Domain in the GoG’ (2019-2021), and seeks to provide a platform for maritime stakeholders in the GoG to further deepen collaboration, cooperation and coordination in order to achieve a safer and secure maritime domain.
The Developing Security Culture in the GoG Course, has been designed with inputs from maritime security experts in the sub-region and reflects the most current realities on the ground, and will result in graduating participants joining the KAIPTC alumni fraternity.
The KAIPTC as one of the three ECOWAS Training Centers of Excellence (TCE) continues to provide globally recognized capacity for all actors on African peace and security through training, education, research, and policy dialogues to foster peace and stability in Africa.
The training program falls within the KAIPTC’s vision and mission to promote effective implementation of relevant regional and international maritime protocols through research and capacity development in order to control maritime crimes including piracy in the Gulf of Guinea.
Present at the ceremony included Ghana’s Ambassador to Togo – His Excellency Kofi Mensah Demitia and other dignitaries.
