MARITIME SECURITY STRATEGY DEVELOPMENT & IMPLEMENTATION TRAINING COURSE: A FOCUS ON AFRICA

For decades, the African continent has been confronted by an extensive range of maritime security threats and challenges, each of which cannot be thoroughly addressed without strategic guidance. Consequently, the continent witnessed a proliferation of strategy documents such as the 2050 African Integrated Maritime Strategy in 2012, the Lomé Charter in 2016 and the Africa Blue Economy Strategy in 2019. At the national level, some African states also began processes towards developing comprehensive maritime strategies. Whether or not each of these strategies are on course to achieving their intended objectives still remains an issue of debate. With a growing recognition amongst African states of the geo-economic importance of the continent’s vast maritime domain comes a responsibility to ensure its protection at all levels. Effective maritime security strategies could provide a unique framework for attaining this. What remains crucial then, is to ground relevant maritime practitioners and policy makers in the theoretical and practical underpinnings necessary either to develop purposeful and targeted maritime security strategies, or to successfully implement existing ones within national and regional contexts. This course is intended to provide such grounding. By exposing participants to key principles and best practices for developing maritime security strategies, the programme will expand expertise necessary to ensure that African states have the strategic guidance they truly need to address their peculiar mix of maritime threats and challenges.