West Africa

ADF STAFF Fisheries officials have long known that trawlers involved in illegal fishing turn off their automatic identification systems (AIS) to cloak their activities. Researchers using Global Fishing Watch data have specified for…

ADF STAFF Illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing continues to rob the Gulf of Guinea of precious fish stocks and threatens the marine ecosystems necessary for their survival. Maj. Gen. Richard Addo Gyane, commandant of the…

ADF STAFF Illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing continued to be a costly issue around the continent in 2022. That fact was highlighted by an October 2022 report by the Financial Transparency Coalition (FTC) that showed…

ADF STAFF Having overfished its own waters, China is sending its heavily subsidized industrial and semi-industrial trawlers to fisheries near Africa, Australia, Indonesia, the Korean peninsula, the Philippines and South America.…

ADF STAFF Five years after its formation, Accra Initiative has agreed to assemble a multinational military force to help stop the spread of violent extremism spilling out of the Sahel toward West African coastal nations. A meeting of the…

ADF STAFF The COVID-19 pandemic helped to accelerate the growth of digital technology across Africa, but it also led to an explosion of internet-related crime. The arrests in September of 75 members of Nigeria’s Black Axe criminal…

ADF STAFF Mali’s decision to quit the G5 Sahel Joint Force in May has sent ripples of insecurity across the region. In speaking to the United Nations Security Council at the time, U.N. Assistant Secretary-General for Africa Martha Ama…

ADF STAFF Longtime observers of illegal fishing say the practice of shark finning is among the most barbaric acts committed at sea. Typically, when a shark is caught, its fins are removed and the body is thrown overboard, leaving the…

ADF STAFF One-third of vessels engaged in illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing in Africa are Chinese-owned, according to a study by the Financial Transparency Coalition (FTC). According to the FTC, eight of the world’s…

ADF STAFF A new report by the Financial Transparency Coalition (FTC) reveals that 48.9% of the world’s industrial and semi-industrial trawlers involved in illegal fishing operate in Africa. West Africa, the world’s epicenter for illegal,…