A national maritime security strategy can help bring together all agencies and government departments and stakeholders with an interest in maritime security, to ensure that the country is ready to address all potential maritime security threats. A regional maritime security workshop (30-31 October) in the Caribbean brought together senior government officials from seven countries * in the eastern Caribbean to kickstart a programme which should see all seven develop their own national maritime security strategies. The intention is to develop, in addition, an overarching Eastern Caribbean regional maritime security strategy, under the auspices of the Organisation of American States (OAS) and the Regional Security System (RSS) - a regional security grouping representing, and with staff drawn from, the seven countries.
IMO supported the regional workshop, which included sessions explaining how safeguarding the maritime domain and the blue economy of the Eastern Caribbean is critical to the region's stability and economic prosperity. A key message was that development and security go "hand-in-hand", since there can be no sustainable development without security, sustainability and peace in the region.
IMO will be working with OAS and the RSS to facilitate further workshops, in 2020, including on risk assessment methodology. IMO will also assist countries in the region and the RSS in identifying and exploiting opportunities to raise the level of maritime security across the region.
* Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Commonwealth of Dominica, Grenada, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.