ArticleJune 20256 min read

Blue diplomacy, a strategic priority for Africa

Published in Marine & Océans

Study Centre DMGO

Summary

While Africa appears central on most of our traditional world maps, it is striking how marginal this maritime continent is in the major negotiations concerning the oceans.

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While Africa appears central on most of our traditional world maps, it is striking how marginal this maritime continent is in the major negotiations concerning the oceans. With 38 coastal countries and immense coastlines, Africa is nevertheless probably the continent most affected by ocean issues, whether environmental, geopolitical or economic. From the Gulf of Guinea to the Indian Ocean, its coastal populations face rising seas, coastal erosion, overfishing and piracy. Nearly 50% of the world’s illegal industrial fishing vessels operate in African waters, causing the continent more than 11 billion dollars in losses each year. In other words, Africa is on the front line of the maritime challenges of the 21st century.

Yet, paradoxically, Africa is conspicuous by its absence where the rules of the maritime game are shaped. In the major decision-making and governance bodies for the oceans, its voice struggles to be heard. The recent international treaty on the high seas is a glaring illustration: adopted in 2024 to protect biodiversity beyond national jurisdiction, it is slow to enter into force for lack of ratifications. To date¹, only 2 of the 55 African states (Seychelles and Mauritius) have ratified this treaty, a minimal commitment that “alarms” observers, so under-represented is the continent in shaping the future of the high seas. The same absence can be seen in fisheries and seabed governance: on issues where Africa would have every interest in weighing in, it remains largely on the sidelines.

AN UNDER-REPRESENTED MARITIME GIANT

How can we explain that Africa, an unidentified maritime object, is thus diplomatically sidelined when it has so much to lose and to gain? First, by the lack of effective regional coordination.

Unlike the European Union or the small island states (which negotiate as a bloc through AOSIS, for example), African countries advance in scattered order. For lack of solid consultation mechanisms, African positions on ocean issues are often fragmented, when they exist at all. There have certainly been attempts at unity: during the negotiations on the BBNJ treaty on the high seas, African states managed to present a common position thanks to the support of the African Union. But these efforts remain the exception rather than the rule. Likewise at continental level, fine commitments struggle to translate into action. The African Charter on Maritime Security and Safety (Lomé Charter), adopted with enthusiasm in 2016, should have given Africa a common framework for governing the seas… But nine years later, one cannot say the results have materialised. Like a drunken boat, African diplomacy lurches for lack of cohesion and deprives itself of leverage.

It must be said that internal divisions and conflicts undermine cooperation. Numerous domestic crises divert attention from maritime issues. It is difficult to mobilise resources to monitor coastlines when the priority is fighting terrorism in the Sahel. Disputes between neighbours do not help: how can shared management of the Gulf of Guinea be built if one country suspects its neighbour of hegemonic designs, or if maritime boundary disputes set one state against another? These rivalries, sometimes compounded by a lack of trust, hinder collective initiatives. Add to this the chronic lack of resources: many African nations do not have sufficiently equipped navies, trained coastguards or specialised scientists to carry the maritime file internationally. As a result, many are subject to an agenda set by others (major powers, shipowners, international NGOs) without really influencing it.

FIRST VICTIMS, LAST DECISION-MAKERS?

This marginalisation is all the more tragic because Africa, as we have said, is directly affected by the ills afflicting the oceans. The stakes are neither abstract nor distant: they already show in the daily lives of millions of Africans. The degradation of marine environments worsens food insecurity (through the depletion of fishery resources) and amplifies natural disasters. Symbolising these intertwined problems, poor urban waste management in Africa directly threatens coastal ecosystems. In Central Africa, dangerous floods occur every year because plastic waste clogs rainwater drainage. These floods, exacerbated by chaotic urbanisation, carry tonnes of plastic and rubbish into rivers and then the ocean, showing that land-based pollution always ends up in the sea. In other words, Africa is bearing the full brunt of its lag in environmental diplomacy: for lack of coordinated waste-management or coastal-protection policies, ecological and human damage is piling up.

Yet who better than Africans could defend these realities in international arenas? Who better than they to argue, for example, for a global anti-plastic-pollution fund or for extended liability clauses for waste-exporting countries?

SOME PROGRESS

The point is not to paint a needlessly bleak picture. Progress exists here and there, driven by a dawning awareness. On 6 and 7 May, Cameroon held in Yaoundé the General Assembly on Urban Waste Management, a first in the country, initiated by Minister Célestine Ketcha Courtès, to rethink waste collection in depth and stem these repeated floods. Notably, in preparing this initiative, a mission of Cameroonian experts was sent to France to draw on French good practice.

Morocco, for its part, is asserting itself as a driving force of African blue diplomacy. In 2022, Rabat launched the Process of African Atlantic States, bringing together 23 countries of the African Atlantic coast with the ambition of coordinating their efforts. In less than three years, this forum has laid its foundations: a permanent secretariat based in Morocco, thematic groups and a common action programme structured around three pillars (political dialogue and security, blue economy and connectivity, protection of the marine environment). This discreet Moroccan diplomatic activism embodies a vision: making the African Atlantic a zone of cooperation rather than competition, and creating synergies both South-South and with the countries of the North Atlantic. Here again, such initiatives deserve to be amplified and supported, because they show that Africa can take its maritime destiny into its own hands.

UNITING FOR A SOVEREIGN BLUE AFRICA

Faced with this twofold finding, maximum vulnerability and minimum influence, the solution comes down to one word: cooperation. Africa must imperatively build ambitious regional cooperation if it wants to stop being a spectator and become an actor in ocean diplomacy. In concrete terms, several lines of action are emerging to establish this “collective maritime power”:

Create regional maritime centres of expertise: It is time for Africa to equip itself with centres of excellence rooted in its realities. A hub in West Africa to track illegal fishing, another in East Africa to think about coastal resilience: this is how credible and audible pan-African expertise can emerge.
Pool maritime surveillance: Without cooperation, there is no control of maritime space. Africa must interconnect its radars, satellites and coastguards. The Yaoundé Code of Conduct started the dynamic in the Gulf of Guinea: what is now needed is a continental network capable of responding to trafficking, plundering and incursions.
Launch an African Erasmus of the sea: Train together to speak with one voice. Lawyers, engineers, oceanographers and officers must be able to move, learn and build a united maritime community. It is the only way to equip a generation of African negotiators able to set their own course.

Naturally, this collective rise in power will have to be accompanied by intelligently designed North–South–South triangular cooperation. Funding and technology from the North can catalyse African projects: the European Union has developed with the African Union an Africa–Europe 2030 roadmap on the oceans, which aims to support joint initiatives in research, marine protection and the blue economy. Likewise, the UN or the World Bank can facilitate and co-finance the creation of these centres of expertise or continental surveillance networks. Successful triangular cooperation means a project led by the South, supported by the North and benefiting other partners in the South.

The cost of inaction is colossal, as we have seen: billions lost, devastated coastlines, weakened populations and enormous economic potential wasted. Far from being a diplomats’ whim, blue diplomacy is a strategic priority for Africa.

Note on the author

Amine Lehna, aged 21, holds degrees in political science and history and is trained in international law and design. After studying at the Sorbonne and the École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées, he founded Deep Blue, a university think tank that brings together students from the major Parisian grandes écoles and universities around maritime issues. He has recently taken the helm of international relations at the Fondation Jacques Rougerie.