National Maritime Security Strategy for Seychelles
CONSULTATIONS to draft a National Maritime Security Strategy for Seychelles with different actors and stakeholders who are working in, playing a role in protecting and safeguarding or are connected in one way or another to the maritime domain, started earlier this year and yesterday a draft of the document was presented to them to get their final inputs.
This was during a validation workshop held at REFLECS 3 at the ex-Coast Guard base.
Leading the process is Michele Stallone, an international independent expert in maritime security with expertise in port security, port safety and port efficiency and management as well as having deep knowledge of the Indian Ocean region, the Gulf of Aden, Horn of Africa, Arabic Peninsula and the Gulf of Guinea coastal countries.
The decision to have a National Maritime Security Strategy was announced by President Danny Faure during the Ocean Conference in Malta in October last year.
President Faure said during the conference that maritime security is an extremely important component of the sustainable development of the ocean economy.
“But, because of our limited and competing resources, it is particularly important that we have a well-thought out maritime security strategy,” he said, while welcoming any cooperation and support that may be extended to us in this regard.
During the Ocean Conference it was also agreed that each country should be able to assess the difficulties and numerous maritime threats brought about by globalisation, the increasing importance of the maritime domain for the Indian Ocean islands among other related issues.
Mr Stallone said yesterday that the consultations he has had with different stakeholders here during the process were at high level.
“The discussions were concise and I had the chance to better understand how Seychelles is organised with regard to the maritime domain and they have all expressed real concern about maritime security threats at both operational and institutional levels,” Dr Stallone pointed out.
He said operational threats reported and talked about are namely piracy, human trafficking, drug trafficking and IUU (illegal, unreported and unregulated) fishing. He noted that there are also threats that cannot be seen but everyone knows exist and are there and they are even more dangerous and these are institutional threats like corruption, lack of transparency and accountability.
During yesterday’s workshop which saw the involvement of high level representatives of stakeholders from all the different ministries, departments and agencies, Dr Stallone went over the different findings and recommendations that have been compiled, sought their final inputs and discussed them at length as they will be considered in the final report to be ready during the course of the year.
Source: The Nation Seychelles
Subscribe to our newsletter. Receive a weekly round-up of all piracy-related & maritime situational awareness news.
OCEANUSLive.org
Information, Security, Safety; Shared
Submitted by Team@oceanuslive.org