Six countries adopted Yaoundé agreement to address maritime security in Gulf of Guinea

The countries are:

• Nigeria
• Ghana
• Angola
• Cameroon
• Benin Republic
• Cote D’ Voire.

The adoption was contained in a communiqué issued at the end of a two day meeting of the Economic Community of West African States, (ECOWAS) hosted by the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency, NIMASA.

The countries agreed that relevant regional agencies must set a framework for regular dialogues that ensure collaborative decision making and follow-ups from a response perspective, in order to monitor and secure every part of the region properly.

Part of the Communique reads:

We take note of the multiple efforts towards the implementation of the emerging Yaoundé architecture but observe that more could be done to enhance the ideals of the Yaoundé Code of Conduct

For this reason, the partners agreed on the following:

• Regional agencies must institutionalize a framework for regular dialogues that guarantee collaborative decision making and follow-ups from a response perspective;
• The International Chamber of Commerce, (ICC) must identify and include more relevant maritime safety and security actors and involve them in response initiatives;
• The meetingcalls for expedited action towards the transformation of the YCC into a binding Convention taking on board, the peculiar contexts of diverse jurisprudence, linguistic traditions and the inter-regional coverage of the code;
• Coordination of action at all levels is critical for impact on the ground. Such coordination efforts must begin with states demonstrating willingness to cede portions of their sovereignty and invest in the realizations of the provisions of the YCC;
• State and multilateral actors, who lead in the implementation of safety and security measures in the Gulf of Guinea, must identify and implement relevant confidence-building measures to reinforce the principles of coordination and in the implementation of the YCC.