RCOC benefits from British Royal Navy’s expertise in capacity building |27 March 2021

A souvenir photograph to mark the occasion (Photo: Louis Toussaint)

The Regional Coordination Operations Centre which facilitates joint or jointly coordinated interventions at sea recently benefited from a virtual capacity building event, courtesy of the British Royal Navy.

The British Royal Navy’s International Training Team delivered a five-day virtual capacity building event to the team at the Regional Coordination Operations Centre (RCOC) to bolster their maritime operations planning capability and better prepare them to face a range of regional maritime crime threats.

Members of staff at the RCOC took part in the five-day virtual workshop held at the REFLECS3 at Bois de Rose conducted remotely by the Royal Navy trainers based in the United Kingdom.

The workshop was the third session delivered by the Royal Navy training team to the RCOC, but the first to have been conducted remotely due to Covid-19 restrictions.

The event focused on the challenges of planning and coordinating operations in response to major maritime events and allowed the RCOC to test their Standard Operating Procedures (SOP), giving participants the opportunity to use the maritime planning process in response to an incident and deepening their knowledge to some of the considerations when coordinating their responses to a specific type of event, including maritime pollution, casualty at sea involving a large number of people and taking a look into how the UK Coast Guard conducts its operations.

The RCOC specialists practised using revised maritime incident response processes and broadened their knowledge of the range of factors to consider when tackling events ranging from maritime pollution to major emergencies at sea.

Speaking on the final day of the workshop, British High Commissioner to the Seychelles, Patrick Lynch, said the event was yet another demonstration of the importance the United Kingdom attaches to maritime security in the western Indian Ocean, and recognition of the leading role that Seychellois expertise plays in countering all forms of maritime crime.

“For the UK and Seychelles, as island nations, our shared experience of the oceans offers a great opportunity to action our shared values of democracy and the rule of law,” said the high commissioner, who also added that there is perhaps no better example than the way that the UK, Seychelles and a number of other democratic countries worked together to tackle the scourge of piracy.

He explained that from a standing start, a combination of international experience and local expertise was able to develop robust and effective responses, from interdiction, to arrest, prosecution, tribunal and detention.

He added that this joined-up approach successfully contained a major emerging threat that was attracting global attention and threatening the wider economy here.

“So the concept has been tested. International cooperation between democratic partners can massively enhance maritime security,” said the high commissioner, who further added that the challenge now is how we go further and how we reflect a range of emerging shared priorities on maritime security, such as narcotics, organised crime and illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing.

The high commissioner added that the UK is committed to supporting the work of Seychelles and the regional bodies here to tackle these threats.

“Importantly, the recent expansion of the UK team in Seychelles has included a senior Royal Marines officer. We welcome Major Renny Bulmer, knowing that his significant international experience will further strengthen our work with the RCOC and the Seychelles People’s Defence Forces,” he concluded.

The RCOC is part of the MASE Programme funded by the European Union to augment Maritime Security in Eastern and Southern Africa and the Indian Ocean. It was launched in 2012.

Under this programme, the Indian Ocean Commission (IOC) has set up a mechanism for the control and surveillance of the western Indian Ocean region through two regional centres, namely the Regional Maritime Information Fusion Centre (RMIFC) – Madagascar – and local-based RCOC.

The system is designed to increase maritime domain awareness by monitoring maritime activities and boosting the sharing and exchange of information. Based on the information available, the stakeholders would take joint or jointly-coordinated interventions at sea.

The RCOC would take action based on information gathered from the RMIFC.

These initiatives were taken to control and take action against maritime crimes that create a lot of trouble in the region, especially piracy.

Many international powers have expressed interest in availing information from the RMIFC.

Roland Duval