Elsie Amelia Tachie-Menson

Challenges to Maritime Security Capacity Building

Elsie Amelia Tachie-Menson, Katja Lindsov Jacobsen, Anna Naa Adochoo Mensah, Ransford E.V. Gyampo

There are several challenges to maritime security capacity building in West Africa. One such challenge relates to the prioritisation of some maritime crimes over others. Such background prioritisations inform the provision of capacity building, which is then geared to help combat crimes like piracy, selected by donors, whilst sometimes neglecting other important dangers in the maritime domain including the pervasive burden of illegal, unregulated, and unreported (IUU) fishing as a longstanding concern raised by coastal states in the Gulf of Guinea region. In 2011 and 2012, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) for instance, acknowledged only the problem of maritime piracy in Resolutions 2018 and 2039. However, without a holistic appreciation of the various challenges to maritime security and a relatedly broader intervention approach that recognizes challenges beyond piracy, maritime security and the blue economy in West Africa will remain in danger. This article explores the ramifications of matching maritime capacity-building interventions to corresponding and diversely prioritised maritime crimes, as well as issues posed to the regional blue economy and overall state and regional security if security capacity is not addressed more broadly and, in a manner, that takes regional priorities seriously. The Ghanaian situation will serve as a case study. Other Gulf of Guinea states are considered briefly to illustrate the direct and indirect effects of deprioritizing other maritime crimes in the effort to disrupt Gulf of Guinea piracy.