Save South Africa’s seas
MASTER PLAN: UNDERSCORES ABSENCE OF A COMPREHENSIVE POLICY A first step is to appoint a high-level entity to oversee affairs of blue economy.
South Africa is surrounded by 2 798km of coastline. Yet, oddly, the country doesn’t have a coherent maritime strategy, underpinned by a related national strategy, to safeguard its maritime interests.
This omission was underscored again recently by an evolving master plan for SA’s oceans.
The document is significant as it puts the importance of the contry’s oceans into sharper focus. But this shouldn’t obscure the fact that government’s commitment to comprehensively harness the ocean to help arrest economic decline has been disappointing.
The document also underscores the absence of a coherent and comprehensive policy. In countries where this has been done well – such as New Zealand and Ghana – policies have been developed that encompass the economic value of a country’s oceans, as well as the vulnerability they present from a security point of view.
There are solutions. A threestep process would put SA’s maritime security house in order.
The first would be to create a well-designed government-led process that includes a high-office body and core stakeholders.
This would lead directly to the second step: the mapping of SA’s national maritime interests, as well as the threats it faces.
The third step would be creation of an integrated national maritime strategy.
The growing trend internationally is for countries to be explicit about their maritime interests and back this with dedicated institutional commitments to promote, develop and defend them if required.
It’s time SA followed suit. Some efforts have been made at getting a policy framework in place. The most recent is the Draft Framework on SA’s National Interest. The evolving master plan and Operation Phakisa – launched by the presidency in July 2014, to hasten solutions to “critical development issues” – stress the critical importance of the oceans economy to SA’s overall economic interests.
The master plan also outlines good statistics on the potential contribution the oceans economy holds for the country. But neither of these adds up to an integrated and credible maritime security plan for the country. The overall picture is one of working in silos, seemingly without coordination.
A recent communiqué from the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Heads of State meeting in the DR Congo noted that maritime security of SA is not what it should be and that a regional maritime strategy must be implemented.
There are examples SA could learn from. There are sound strategies on maritime security emerging among Gulf of Guinea countries, Kenya in the Horn region, and the emphasis by Seychelles on security to harness the economic potential of its maritime territories.
Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, Seychelles and Mauritius have made strides. The UK recently launched its national maritime security strategy.
The naval profile unfolds alongside a much larger oceans agenda made up of security, safety, climate change, functional connectivity, and a thriving blue economy.
A first step is to appoint a high-level entity to oversee maritime affairs in SA. A department of maritime affairs is an attractive idea. But a powerful steering committee reporting to the Presidency is probably a more attainable start. New Zealand and Ghana have taken this approach.
Next there needs to be a detailed mapping of interests on existing and new domains. An example is the security of underwater cable infrastructure – locally and regionally.
The maritime domain has essentially become too important to leave within a vague and broad set of statements like SA’s recent framework document. Clearly articulated national interests with a maritime underpinning should inform an integrated national maritime security strategy.
In my view this is imperative for three reasons. First, existing plans and documents are too vague about a credible security foundation for SA’s dependence on, and use of, the oceans. This leaves too much room for ambiguity about what must be secured.
Second, the absence of a strategy inherently forfeits the value in planning for shifts in maritime interests, as well as the dynamic modern strategic maritime environment. A third aspect stems from the value of a maritime security strategy to inform collaboration with regional and international partners (other African countries). Having a maritime strategy presents opportunities for maritime diplomacy – whether coercive, cooperative or more persuasive in kind.
SA is also very explicit in its foreign policy about commitment to the SADC and Africa. The African Union’s Aims-2050 and Lomé Charter, as well as Agenda 2063, alongside the UN Sustainable Development Goals, have explicit maritime objectives that call for cooperation.
Collectively, these framework documents guide and expect SA to be in step with its own strategies. The question is: what does SA bring to the maritime table?
Not a great deal, is the answer. This means it can’t support and cooperate with higher order African maritime architectures.
SA comes across as being out of touch with maritime security developments. There is no doubt that encouraging work is being done on SA’s ocean landscapes.
This work unfortunately stems more from collections of actors in national departments, agencies, NGOs, and academia shining the light on the country’s critical maritime interests. But this hasn’t been translated into a coherent strategy. It is national government that must orchestrate the opportunities, actors and beneficiaries that will give expression to Operation Phakisa’s extensive oceans agenda.