Paper short abstract:

The paper aims to understanding the opportunities and constraints for setting-up regional coast guards as well as and other measures to mitigate the effects of piracy for local actors with traditional maritime-dependent livelihoods.

Paper long abstract:

Since 2008, the intensification of piracy attacks off the coast of Somalia and in the Gulf of Aden triggered a massive scale experiment in the Horn of Africa's maritime domain. The anti-piracy multiple initiatives have had as its most immediate consequence the securitization of the region's maritime space. The Horn of Africa countries do not prioritise anti-piracy as international actors. For the coastal states of the region, and for Somalia in particular, the key concern is illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing, as well as the dumping of illegal toxic waste. The overall impact of piracy for the domestic fisheries sector in Somalia and the wider Indian Ocean space affected by piracy off Somalia coast remains under-researched. Moreover, only recently have international actors sought to implement measures to mitigate the effects of piracy for fisheries in the Western Indian Ocean.

The EU under the Common Security and Defence Policy and under the European Bureau for Conservation and Development is tackling piracy and its impact on fisheries.

The key question of this paper is how EU initiatives in the security sector mitigate the effects of piracy for groups with maritime-dependent livelihoods? How do these initiatives contemplate long-term alternatives for those who engage in criminal activities linked to piracy? The paper aims to understand to what extent the EU initiatives for supporting the security sector reform in Somalia's maritime domain go beyond coastal guards training and law enforcement and take into account the support for Somalia's maritime activities as a long-term anti-piracy strategy.