Bay of Bengal can achieve sustainable maritime security by setting priorities, report says

Stable Seas published a new report examining the maritime security and governance in the Bay of Bengal across nine issue areas including the blue economy, coastal welfare, rule of law, piracy and armed robbery, illicit trades, maritime mixed migration, fisheries, maritime enforcement capacity, and international cooperation.

Specifically, the report focuses on the progress that has been made across the issues stated above, as well as the challenges that remain to sustainable maritime security in the region. It also suggests several areas of policy prioritization that could have positive impacts across issue areas and help establish a self-reinforcing, positive cycle of maritime security in the Bay of Bengal.

Key conclusions:

Illicit maritime activities are intrinsically linked to land-based issues like coastal economic welfare, illicit economies, and the rule of law.

The improvement or worsening of conditions in any one issue area can have important follow-on effects which impact wider regional maritime security and governance.

Increasing climate vulnerability threatens the health of fisheries and coastal welfare across the Bay of Bengal.

Although piracy and armed robbery incidents have declined in the first half of 2019, in 2018 almost a third of all reported maritime incidents in the Indo-Pacific occurred in the Bay of Bengal.

Recent outbreaks of political violence in areas have contributed to maritime mixed migration, the escalation of which could generate instability in the wider region

Regional states have placed an increased emphasis on maritime domain awareness to counteract illicit maritime activities such as piracy, armed robbery, and kidnapping; illicit trades; human smuggling; illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing.

Bay of Bengal littoral countries are strengthening their maritime ties through a series of bilateral and multilateral alliances, naval exercises, and memorandums of understanding.

The region is increasingly becoming an area of strategic interest for major external powers through diplomatic and economic engagement on maritime issues.

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Regional Ports

Several ports at the area face difficulties, including inefficiency, corruption, and lack of capacity. These challenges have a negative impact on the maritime industry and the blue economy. From an economic point of view, corruption and a lack of capacity in some ports degrades the efficiency of shipping and international trade.

In terms of security, long wait times at anchorage provide opportunities for armed robbery of vessels, while corruption creates opportunities for the flow of illicit trades.

The report highlights that to improve the current condition at the ports will need large-scale investments in the infrastructure and modern cargo-management systems. For the time being, progress is obvious at in India’s Sagar Mala initiative, which would benefit from additional responsible outside investment. Automated cargo-management and customs systems can also help improve efficiency and limit opportunities for corruption, though such systems are costly and may encounter resistance from the entrenched interests of port officials and workers.

Maritime Domain Awareness

Although the Bay of Bengal has a moderate degree of capacity in this area, gaps remain. Specifically:

There are large gaps in the MDA capabilities of individual states in the Bay of Bengal which can be addressed in part by capacity-building efforts from partners both within and beyond the region.

The difficulty of monitoring the activity of the numerous small vessels operating in the bay is a significant MDA gap.

Developing systems for monitoring small vessels and building relationships with and reporting structures for fishers and coastal communities could help raise awareness of suspicious activity by smaller craft. As maritime crime is often transnational, regional information-sharing is also key to building MDA.

The establishment of the IFC-IOR is a major step towards this goal and its further development is critical to improved regional MDA.

Stateless Communities

To deal with the challenges expressed above, the report notes that the issue of statelessness is the key.

The stateless status of some coastal communities undermines their economic and physical security and drives dangerous maritime mixed migration, enriching criminal networks in the process. There is no easy solution to this challenge, but the development of legal migration pathways and increased assistance from the international community in finding a long-term resolution to the current Rohingya crisis will mitigate not only the suffering of stateless communities, but also the downstream impacts of statelessness on regional maritime security.

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