Managing Africa's maritime domain: issues and challenges

Africa's coastal zones and ocean spaces bear certain unique features as different from those of the other zones of the Indian Ocean region. One such maritime characteristic is that the continent is virtually flanked by sea on all four sides. Such uniqueness of the region has both positive and negative consequences for the coastal countries of Africa. The adverse consequences of the maritime topography, such as piracy and illegal fishing, are rather more seriously felt by today by the regional states. The unstable and fragile political regimes of many of the African littoral countries compound the problems of managing their maritime domains. Maritime criminal and illegal operations are confined not only to the coastal states but also to the island states of the continent. The inability of these states to combat the threats regularly posed by maritime non-state actors has resulted in the enormous naval militarisation of the African waters by foreign naval forces, Western and non-Western. How far and how long the states of the region should depend on foreign countries for ensuring the safety of their coastal zones will also determine the level of independence that these states will retain to keep their maritime wealth and domain under their sovereign control.