eBlue_economy_Maritime security risk assessment promoted in the Caribbean
Effective assessment of maritime security risks is important when developing maritime security policy and operational procedures. A regional maritime security risk assessment workshop in the Caribbean (27-28 February) brought together government maritime security officials from six countries * in the eastern Caribbean to learn risk assessment methodology as part of the development of their own national maritime security strategies.
The workshop taught participants how to assess the threat from different hostile actors, how to determine the consequences of a successful attack and how to rank diverse maritime security risks, including theft from historic shipwrecks and the smuggling of weapons and narcotics, through to acts of terrorism against ships and port facilities. The countries will use this training to compile national maritime risk audit matrixes, which in turn will feed into a regional maritime risk audit matrix and assist with the development of 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, seven countries**.
IMO facilitated the regional workshop and brought in experts from the UK Department for Transport to lead elements of the training.
IMO will be working with OAS and the RSS to facilitate the development of the national and regional strategies in 2020 and 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, Grenada, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.
** the six countries above plus the Commonwealth of Dominica.
