Nancy Karigithu News

Africa's abundance of solar, wind and thermal energy across the continent can place Africa at the core of the global decarbonization of maritime transport, the IMO conference on Low-Carbon Shipping in Africa heard on May 5.Speaking at the Conference, held in In Mombasa, Kenya, and co-organized with the Kenya Maritime Authority, The Hon. Kwaku Ofori Asiamah, Minister of Transport, Ghana, said Africa is the key to speeding up global climate action on the Decarbonization Agenda.

Seven IMO Member States have nominated a candidate for the post of Secretary-General of the IMO in what could be a win for diversity in maritime.Three of the seven are women, and if elected, Nancy Karigithu of Kenya would also be the first African to hold the post. The other female nominees are Dr. Cleopatra Doumbia-Henry (Dominica) and Minna Kivimäki (Finland).They are joined by nominees Moin Uddin Ahmed (Bangladesh), Suat Hayri Aka (Türkiye), Arsenio Antonio Dominguez Velasco (Panama) and Zhang Xiaojie (China).The term of the current incumbent…

Kenya is working to create a National Maritime Security Strategy aiming to bring opportunities for social-economic growth, by safeguarding and promoting the blue economy and by providing a safe and secure operating environment for international maritime transportation.The roadmap to develop the strategy was agreed following an inaugural virtual meeting (21 July) organized by the International Maritime Organization (IMO) and attended by 16 participants, representing maritime stakeholders from all relevant ministries and agencies of Kenya.

Africa has launched its maritime technology cooperation centre as part of an ambitious  International Maritime Organization (IMO)-EU project to establish a global network of centres to further global efforts in addressing climate change. The centres will act as regional focal points for a wide range of activities including improving compliance with existing and future international energy-efficiency regulations; promoting uptake of low-carbon technologies and operations in maritime transport, and establishing voluntary pilot data-collection and reporting systems to feed back into the global regulatory process. In doing so, they will play their part in supporting the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The International Maritime Organization (IMO) is leading a maritime security table-top exercise in Mombasa, Kenya (April 21-22) as part of the Organization’s continuing work to implement the Djibouti Code of Conduct. National officials from key ministries and departments are taking part in a range of evolving scenarios involving both routine business and during an incident, which aim to promote an integrated, whole-of-government approach to maritime security measures and maritime law enforcement. This includes supporting Kenya’s national capacity to perform coastguard functions through inter-agency cooperation and development of maritime strategies and contingency plans.

Plagued by low sources of revenue in their economies, African maritime stakeholders are meeting in Mombasa, Kenya to look into ways the industry could add to national revenue base. Key debate issue on the first day revolved around whether Africa should adopt an open or closed ship registry system. While maritime experts and industry players yearn for an open form of registry, viewed as a means to boost the number of ships in the continent, hence revenue from taxation, government representatives at the meeting were however cautious.