At the end of a year in which World Maritime Day took the theme of "Piracy: orchestrating the response", the IMO has reported "twelve months of relatively good progress that have laid the foundations for cautious optimism about the future".
Recently compiled statistics show that the number of ships and seafarers held captive by Somali pirates has reduced from a peak of 33 and 733 in February to 13 and 265 respectively, at the beginning of December. The number of reported attacks has also declined from a high of 45 per month in January 2011 to 14 for the month of November 2011; and the proportion of successful attacks has been cut from 20 percent in January 2011 to just seven percent in November 2011.
Throughout 2011, the IMO engaged at the political level (mainly through the UN Security Council) to bring about a solution to the piracy problem and expedite the release of seafarers and any other persons held hostage. In addition, the organisation intensified its work to strengthen the protection of persons (seafarers, fisherman and passengers), ships and cargoes in piracy-infested areas and also preserve the integrity of shipping lanes of strategic importance and significance, such as the Gulf of Aden.
The IMO also sought to make improvements to the accessibility and distribution of guidelines and industry best management practice guidance. Steps were taken to ensure that ships' crews are aware of how to access naval protection and implement effectively the preventive, evasive and defensive measures recommended by IMO and the industry. The organisation also addressed the issue of carriage of privately contracted armed security personnel aboard ships and developed guidelines on the subject, involving, in this particular instance, flag, port and coastal States.
The IMO also helped promote greater levels of coordination among navies, and further co-operation between and among states, regions and organisations.
"The work the organisation has done to promote an orchestrated response to piracy during 2011 has been wide-ranging and far-reaching and the statistics suggest that it is beginning to have a positive effect," said IMO secretary-general Efthimios E Mitropoulos. "Although we should welcome the good news of the falling numbers of ships and seafarers falling in the hands of pirates (which allows us to claim that the outgoing year was not wasted), there is still a lot of work to be done: even one seafarer at the hands of pirates, is one too many. It is for this reason that we cannot become complacent, and should be particularly concerned about signs that piracy and armed robbery may be beginning to spread to other parts of the world, in particular to west Africa."
