Long-term plans have been drawn up, information has been shared and training centres have been built. Our first results, recently published in the journal African Security, show much has been achieved. In a research project at Cardiff University, we study the progress of regional maritime security strategies in Africa and how the international community can help them. Building a regional infrastructure is the most promising approach to keeping the sea-lanes safe. Tackling the menace requires regional and international co-operation. A transnational challengeĪll the evidence shows piracy is a transnational challenge. Both show that better economic infrastructures may simply lead to different forms of piracy (better organised robberies, for example) rather than ending it. Nigeria and Indonesia face piracy, too and these are hardly broken states. In any case, state failure is not the only cause of piracy. If navies cannot stay, what are the long-term answers to piracy? One lies in helping Somalis rebuild their country, but creating prosperity takes decades. Their networks remain intact and attempts by pirate gangs to attack vessels continue. But if navies pull out it is likely that piracy will return. The current mandates of NATO and the EU run until 2016 and it is unclear whether they will be extended. In part, that’s because the shipping industry has learned to fight pirates, but also because navies now patrol the Western Indian Ocean.įighting pirates with war ships is successful, but costly, and navies cannot maintain their presence forever. The pirates of Somalia haven’t successfully hijacked a ship for more than two years. Vessels were hijacked and seafarers held hostage, many for months and years.
Between 20 hundreds of ships were attacked off the Somali coast. Even the small percentage of people who are aware of the importance of shipping can’t imagine the dangers that hundreds of ships and crew face from piracy. A recent study showed we all suffer from this kind of “seablindness”.
Yet what happens out on the world’s lonely oceans remains a mystery to us. In fact, pretty much all the goods we consume reach us this way, with African waterways being the major shipping route between China and Europe. The answer is: they were transported by sea. When we sip our morning coffee or snack on a piece of chocolate, we hardly think about how these products came to us.
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