The coordinator Bertrand Demez and two regional managers, Eric Glotin and Christophe Girin, attended the Directors meeting of the 3 regional centres of Yaoundé Architecture held at CRESMAO in Abidjan October 3rd and 4th, 2019. The ICC, CRESMAO and CRESMAC play a crucial role in the coordination of maritime security within the 19 coastal countries of the Gulf of Guinea [ICC: interregional coordination centre; CRESMAO: West Africa regional maritime security centre; CRESMAC: Central Africa regional maritime security centre].
At the meeting, the three directors, Rear-admiral Junior Fastudo, acting managing director of the ICC, LCdr Boniface Konan, CRESMAO acting director and LCdr Pierre Midianzou, CRESMAC director debated about the difficulties and opportunities in making all centres fully operational. Besides the GoGIN staff members, five additional managers of the three centres actively participated in the discussions that dealt with:
· the financial status of the centres, which has recently improved but needs to be consolidated;
· the ongoing reorganisations: CRESMAO should be moving but is awaiting new building; ECOWAS initiated a process to better define ICC’s and CRESMAO’s respective organisations, including job and profile descriptions of required staff;
· the implementation of YARIS: both ICC and the regional centres’ representants reaffirmed their support to the future information sharing system for the 27 centres. They recommend that a task force dedicated to “Training on the use of YARIS” be set up rapidly.
Each participant shared their agenda to ensure an effective coordination of the activities led by all regional stakeholders (national and regional authorities, foreign partners).
The next meeting is planned to be held at the CRESMAC Headquarters in Pointe Noire.