Mastering Maritime Security: Reflexive Capacity Building and the Western Indian Ocean Experience

Tackling maritime security is one of the major global challenges today. Safeguarding international transport by sea, preventing accidents and disasters, fighting transnational organised crimes such as piracy, trafficking of narcotics and weapons, addressing fishery crimes and other environmental crimes are all vital for international security and realising the prospects of the blue economy.
Maritime security is a global task. It requires effective maritime security governance at both national and regional levels, but also external capacity building to assist countries in developing the requisite human and material capacities.

Significant investments have been made in maritime security and over the years a rich experience base has been built regarding how to organize maritime security governance and do capacity building work. This report consolidates this experience and identifies best practices to organize maritime security more efficiently and devise ways in which it can be effectively supported by donors. It provides guidelines for mastering maritime security.

Mastering maritime security requires reflexive capacity building. What reflexivity means in practice is demonstrated in this report by relying on the experience in the Western Indian Ocean region.

The report is an important toolkit for all practitioners involved in maritime security. It also provides an essential guide for the planning, programming and implementation of capacity building for maritime security.