IMO Pledge to Support African Piracy Code

The organisation will help implement the West and Central Africa piracy code adopted at a recent ministerial meeting.

IMO has pledged its support to assist in the implementation of a new Code of Conduct concerning the prevention and repression of piracy, armed robbery against ships and illicit maritime activity in west and central Africa, which has been adopted at a Ministerial meeting in Cotonou, Benin.

The Code is expected to be opened for signature at the meeting of the Heads of State and Government of Central and West African States, expected to be held in Yaoundé, Cameroon, in May 2013.

Welcoming the adoption of the Code, IMO Secretary-General Koji Sekimizu said that IMO was ready to support the countries in the region in its implementation.

“IMO has been working for a number of years with international development partners on a number of activities aimed at enhancing the ability of individual States in the region, and the wider sub-region, to build a sustainable maritime capacity and we look forward to continuing to work with them to support the implementation of this Code and to work together to repress piracy, armed robbery against ships and other illicit maritime activity off the coasts of west and central Africa,” Mr. Sekimizu said. “We look forward to continuing to work with the countries to assist in the implementation of this new Code.”

IMO has assisted ECOWAS in the drafting of the Code, which incorporates many elements of the IMO-developed Djibouti Code of Conduct, signed by 20 States in the western Indian Ocean and Gulf of Aden area, as well as provisions from the existing Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to establish a sub-regional integrated coast guard function network in West and Central Africa, developed in 2008 by IMO and the Maritime Organization of West and Central Africa (MOWCA).