Following up on the CGPCS meeting the UAE held its 4th counter-piracy conference back to back. The conference was an impressive high level meeting seeing the attendance of a range of ministers ambassadors and CEO’s. The programme of the conference is available here.
In the conference I had the pleasure to moderate the plenary session on lessons learned and the future of counter-piracy. Participants in the panel included His Excellency Joel Morgan, Minister for Home Affairs and Transport, Seychelles, Laurent Bukera the Country Director of the Somalia Office of the World Food Programme, Dr. Grahaeme Henderson, the Vice President for Shipping and Maritime of Shell Trading and Shipping, Pottengal Mukundan the Director of the International Maritime Bureau, Alamdar S. Hamdani the Deputy Chief of the Counter terrorism Section, US Department of Justice and Ron Widdows the Chairman of the World Shipping Council. The debate clearly showed the importance of strengthening regional resolution to maritime insecurity, the importance of industry leadership in developing infrastructure in Somalia and establishing reporting mechanism and the vitality of addressing the culture of impunity by chasing piracy king pins.