As the global economy relies on increasingly interdependent maritime transport and energy supply networks, maritime threats in the Gulf of Guinea are collective challenges for all stakeholders in the region as well as on an international scale. What are the means implemented in the Gulf of Guinea to eradicate maritime piracy? What courses of action do the different stakeholders encourage in order to face this scourge?
Maritime piracy, a global security and geo-economic challenge
Piracy in the Gulf of Guinea has potential long-term strategic implications for the economic and energy-security matters, not only within the region itself but globally. The negative consequences of this phenomenon may affect both coastal and landlocked states, all of which depend on maritime trade for their exports and imports. At the institutional level, the Gulf of Guinea is made up of eight African countries, including seven from Central Africa: Angola, Cameroon, Congo, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, Democratic Republic of Congo, Sao Tomé and Principe, and one from West Africa namely Nigeria.
In Libreville, Gabon, in 2001, these countries created the Gulf of Guinea Commission, the mission of which is to facilitate consultations for the prevention and resolution of conflicts related to the delimitation of borders and the exploitation of resources on the one hand, and to set up a permanent mechanism for managing common problems related to maritime safety on the other.
The Gulf of Guinea overflows with natural riches: it is the first oil region in sub-Saharan Africa with a daily production capacity of 5 million barrels; it produces more than ¾ of the cocoa consumed in the world; it has several minerals such as diamond (30% of world reserves), cobalt (50% of world reserves), Coltan (more than ¾ of global production), in addition to manganese, uranium, and chromium. The latter is essential for the aerospace industry of the great powers. Unfortunately, the exploitation of these is increasingly endangered by piracy.
Overall, at a strategic level, the Gulf of Guinea is also the cove by which ocean-going cruisers and nuclear-powered submarines of the great powers can easily be masked to track all military operational situations. It is in this perspective that controlling the Gulf of Guinea is to preserve the security of Africa in its greater proportion, and it is also to secure world economy. It is a decisive nodal point and a geostrategic pivot of world trade.
In addition to the frequent abductions and killings by pirates, a disruption of maritime traffic is detrimental to the economies of the Gulf States in particular and to international maritime traffic in general.
The Gulf of Guinea thus becomes the reference point for many armed groups, despite the stakes linked to the “sovereignty” of these States and the international maritime flow.
Growing interest in the Gulf of Guinea: an alternative supply source of energy
The United States and the European Union are paying increasing attention to the Gulf of Guinea. For instance, it is expected that the United States will invest more than $10 billion a year in the region over the next 10 years in oil activities; oceanic research in the deep-sea waters of Equatorial Guinea and Angola; the restoration and preservation of the forests of Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, Republic of Congo, DRC, Cameroon, and CAR; the implementation of a training framework for African peace-keeping forces; and discrete political interventions. This interest is driven by the USA’s and Europe’s desire to diversify their sources of energy supply so as to reduce the risks associated with high dependence on Middle Eastern oil. The production of oil and natural gas in the Gulf of Guinea has the potential to fulfill the USA’s and Europe’s excess demand for energy[1].
The Gulf of Guinea bears numerous advantages for Western countries. First, the crude oil from the region is of better quality than that from Latin America. Second, the region’s oil contains little sulfur by international standards, an appreciable characteristic for U.S. oil companies. Third, oil in the region is mostly extracted from offshore fields, far from ground political instability and wars, and as such, can be easily protected from turmoil[2].
For a collective riposte
Given the lack of data coming from the Gulf of Guinea, it is difficult to accurately estimate economic losses in the region, but they are certainly heavy as estimates of the annual cost of piracy range from $ 565 million to $ 2 billion. The strategic development plans of many countries in the region provide that 60% of their fiscal revenues will come from hydrocarbons coming from or passing through the Gulf.
The major foreign powers (United States, France, Great Britain, but also Japan and China) are present by providing logistical, financial or armed support to the countries of the region. They protect their national interests, which pass on this gigantic highway of the seas.
The attacks on shipping in the Gulf of Guinea revealed the vulnerability of the maritime space of this region, which has given rise to various countermeasures.
In dealing with the growing maritime threat, the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS) has developed an Integrated Strategy for Maritime Safety in 2008, which calls for the establishment of a common regional framework for the regulation of maritime activities.
Starting in 2009, efforts continued in order to complete the development of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Integrated Maritime Strategy (IMS), which is inspired by the ECCAS initiative, including the creation of a regional center for maritime safety coordination in West Africa and three areas controlled by multinational maritime coordination centers. This concept is currently being piloted in ECOWAS Zone E (Benin, Nigeria, and Togo).
It is with this ever-evolving threat that the ECOWAS and ECCAS Heads of States and Governments adopted the Yaoundé Declaration in June 2013, committing themselves to the establishment of an Inter-regional Coordination Center for maritime security in Yaoundé, Cameroon to further promote collective initiatives in the area of information sharing, interception, prosecution and victim support. However, the implementation of its non-binding code of conduct has been slow. In particular, delays in the operationalization of the Center underscore the need for a greater political will.
In addition, drawing on the lessons learned from the situation in the Gulf of Aden, the shipping industry has established the Gulf of Guinea Maritime Trade Information Sharing Center (MTISC-GOG), a dedicated focal point for incident reporting, information sharing and communication of the latest maritime safety guidelines.
A persistent implementation problem
Although progress has been made, strong political commitments are needed at the national, regional and international levels to reverse the deterioration of maritime security in the Gulf of Guinea.
Knowledge of the maritime domain remains weak, inter-agency coordination is limited, and the intra-regional coordination mechanisms that have been established are often underfunded. The highly fungible nature of maritime threats means that this challenge cannot be solved by individual states alone, but requires a coherent cooperation for regional security. The lack of cooperation, more specifically the exchange of information between the different countries, is a major problem even if, for all the actors of the sector, many efforts have been made in this direction since the last conference of Yaoundé in 2013.
The limited number of trials related to acts of piracy underlines the need for a better harmonization of legal procedures in the region as indicated in the Memorandum of Understanding between ECCAS, ECOWAS and the Gulf of Guinea Commission.
The completion and implementation of the ECOWAS Integrated Maritime Strategy therefore urgently deserves the attention and commitment of all stakeholders, including affected coastal communities.
Strong means of profiling maritime crime and information-sharing among the region’s stakeholders are needed to effectively break the cycle of attacks on shipping. This involves monitoring ships in transit, their crews and their owners to profile suspicious vessels and individuals, including activities in coastal communities.
Indeed, what is often observed in most States concerned by the phenomenon of piracy (Nigeria, Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Angola), is that the reactions are mainly focused on military action at sea level, the lack of safe cooperation between states in coastal and maritime surveillance, and military cooperation in surveillance and control. Although these envisaged actions are necessary, there is an urgent need to prepare a real framework of strategic support for poverty reduction actions and good cooperation between the Gulf States and other States.
Imane LAHRICH
[1] Emergence of the Gulf of Guinea in the Global Economy: Prospects and Challenges, Damian Ondo Mañe, International Monetary Fund, 2005 – P.6
[2] Ibid.