Urgent situation

The urgency of the situation made the Togolese Government call for a meeting of AU members to undertake comprehensive and collaborative action and subsequently, three years after Cameroon had hosted the first summit on maritime security in the Gulf of Guinea, an AU Extraordinary Summit on “Maritime Security and Development in Africa” was held in the Togolese capital Lomé from October 10-15.

“We are aware of the dangers that threaten our countries and our people, and conscious of the urgent need to mobilize resources at our disposal, in particular, our seas and oceans,” Togolese President Faure Essozimna Gnassingbé said in his welcome address at the inauguration of the session. “Isolated or individual actions will not [be] able to tackle efficiently the negative and crippling phenomenons that affect our maritime spaces. Only general mobilizations and collective and willing actions can enable us to better protect the assets that our seas, oceans and their