Will the Wakashio wreck improve Africa’s ability to respond to maritime disasters?
Despite decades of policy work, Western Indian Ocean countries still have different maritime disaster response capabilities.
The shipwreck of the Wakashio in July 2020 caused one of Mauritius’ worst environmental catastrophes. Its devastating impact is expected to last for decades. The disaster is a wake-up call for African states to build better disaster response capacities, and for African maritime institutions to develop appropriate expertise and response mechanisms.
Speakers at this seminar will critically discuss the wreck of the Wakashio, how people and organisations responded and how to avert similar oil spills and other hazardous pollution incidents in the region in future.
For more on this topic, see the new ISS report – Oil spills in the Western Indian Ocean: national contingency plans fall short
Chair: Timothy Walker, Maritime Project Leader and Senior Researcher, ISS Pretoria
Speakers:
Ernesta Swanepoel, ISS Consultant and disaster risk management priority area co-leader: South African chapter of the Indian Ocean Rim Association Academic Group
Nishan Degnarain, Chair, London School of Economics' Ocean Finance Initiative and Forbes contributor on Ocean Technologies
Photo: IMO
