The Tides of Maritime Security in the Gulf of Guinea

Recognizing the significance of the maritime domain is crucial to understanding the global and regional dealings of coastal nations. Over 70 percent of the Earth’s surface area is covered by ocean, and today, nearly half of the world’s population lives in coastal regions. Roughly 90 percent of all traded goods transit the world’s oceans, which the World Bank refers to as the “Blue Economy.” The maritime domain’s modern role in enabling the globalization of trade and free flow of goods across the world cannot be overstated, and fostering a healthy Blue Economy offers particularly lucrative opportunities for the developing world to tap into broader global supply chains. In 2011, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development found that the developing world disproportionately benefited from the growth of the maritime economy over the last few decades, citing that “the volume of seaborne imports [of developing countries] rose from just 18 percent to 56 percent of the world’s total,” between 1970 and 2010. By further integrating with the global Blue Economy, developing countries enhanced their economic competitiveness and ability to facilitate the production of more advanced goods.

Africa’s Gulf of Guinea is a prime modern example of the power of maritime trade in invigorating the growth of coastal nations. Spanning Africa’s West coast from Senegal to Angola, the Gulf of Guinea links some of Central Africa’s most economically promising nations and comprises some of the continent’s richest supplies of energy, minerals, and fisheries. The Gulf’s geographic position along the Equator grants adjacent countries access to some of the finest and most easily accessible crude oil on the planet, and the region is home to just under five percent of the world’s proven oil reserves. Further, the Gulf of Guinea is largely devoid of any narrow channels or natural chokepoints that induce inherent security risks for transiting ships. These factors, the International Monetary Fund notes, are the source of the Gulf of Guinea’s emergence as a global economic player in the early 2000s. 

Nevertheless, taking full advantage of the Gulf of Guinea’s plentiful natural resources and facilitating the flow of free trade depends on mariners’ ability to safely transit goods through regional waters. In spite of the Gulf of Guinea’s wealth of resources and favorable geographic position, the region’s economic growth is inhibited by the persistent threat of piracy. A 2021 study produced by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime estimated that, of the twelve nations sampled from the region, a total of almost $2 billion USD is lost annually to the direct and indirect costs of piracy operations in the Gulf of Guinea. Of that total, only about $1 million USD can be attributed to the immediate effects of maritime crime. The direct costs of piracy pale in comparison to the indirect costs countries incur in establishing security, and to an even greater extent, the opportunity costs associated with piracy’s disruptive effects on economic activity in the Gulf. As a result, the persistence of piracy in the Gulf of Guinea concerns regional and international actors alike.

Ali Kamal-Deen, a retired Commander in the Ghanaian Navy and contributor to the U.S. Naval War College Review, cites 2005 as the beginning of the Gulf of Guinea’s contemporary struggles with maritime security. According to Kamal-Deen’s studies, which span the period between 2005 and 2013, both attempted and executed piracy incidents “decreased in 2008 and 2009, but … swelled again between 2010 and 2013; 2012 marked a peak.” At the time, the tides of maritime security in the Gulf of Guinea reflected an unstable fluctuation, prompting the Nigerian Navy, in conjunction with foreign and regional navies, to increase multilateral maritime patrols under the Yaoundé Protocol of 2013. The agreement’s legacy as a turning point in the Gulf’s security outlook is evident in the sizable decline in recent figures of piracy incidents in the Gulf of Guinea, suggesting that cooperative security efforts have largely proven successful. As of 2022, the swells of unpredictability that Kamal-Deen studied in the early 2000s had calmed, and the progress made in just one decade marked a notable step towards achieving prolonged safety in the Gulf of Guinea. 

Despite recent achievements, the International Maritime Bureau has grown increasingly concerned over a resurgence of maritime security incidents in 2023. Data from the first half of the year reports 65 incidents of piracy and armed robbery in the Gulf, an alarming uptick from 58 incidents over the same period in 2022. International maritime governance bodies, along with countries like the United States and France, have made formal statements committing themselves to the unwavering pursuit of security in the Gulf of Guinea. But with the economies of coastal nations and the safety of mariners transiting the Gulf at risk, the resurgence of piracy necessitates immediate, tangible action. If current standard operating procedures of enforcement agencies are no longer suitable for containing maritime threats in the Gulf of Guinea, then renewed transnational cooperation in alignment with the principles of the Yaoundé Protocol must be explored. Western and Central Africa, in addition to any country that relies on the region’s exportation of energy and minerals, risk destabilization in the event that the Gulf of Guinea returns to its pre-2005 levels of maritime crime.