APA – Lome (Togo) The aim is to help the West African countries of Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Togo and Benin meet the challenges of instability and insecurity for an initial two-year period.
The Gulf of Guinea, one of the major shipping routes for international maritime trade, has been named “the most dangerous maritime zone in the world” in 2021, mainly due to piracy.
As a result, insurers have forced shipowners to pay higher premiums to transit these Atlantic Ocean waters, which border Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Togo, Benin, Nigeria, Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon and São Tomé and Príncipe.
As part of the European Union’s (EU) integrated approach, last Monday the Council of the community organization adopted a security and defense initiative, as well as operation and mission plans for the civilian and military pillars.
As Josep Borrell, the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, put it, “the EU is stepping up its support to combat the spillover of insecurity from the Sahel to the coastal states of West Africa. As part of a broader response combining prevention, socio-economic development and humanitarian aid, this initiative will provide tailor-made support in line with the needs expressed by our partners. It demonstrates the EU’s commitment to countries willing to work with us”.
The initiative, when implemented, will strengthen the capacities of the security and defense forces of the four target countries to contain and respond to the pressure exerted by armed terrorist groups in their northern regions.
In addition, it will promote “the rule of law and good governance in the security sectors, as well as confidence-building between civil society and the security and defense forces,” said an EU press release, whose promise is “tailor-made support based on the needs identified and formulated” by Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Togo and Benin.
“Following an innovative, flexible and modular configuration, the initiative will combine military and civilian security and defense expertise (provision of short-term training teams or guest experts) in complementarity with European Peace Facility assistance measures, such as those recently adopted to support the Armed Forces of Benin (€11.75 million) and Ghana (€8.25 million).”
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