PROF R. KAFAGA
With a unique bi-coastal location, Egypt is responsible for ensuring the security of around 114 thousand nautical square miles; divided between 74 thousand square miles in the Mediterranean Sea and 40 thousand square miles in the Red Sea. these extended coastal lines, neighbouring two distinct geopolitical regions means that Egypt faces different sets of interests as well as challenges along each coastal line.
In the Eastern Mediterranean, for example, multiple conflicts in the Middle East have been a source of threat to maritime security in the Eastern Mediterranean. Additionally, recent discoveries of huge natural gas reserves in the area, necessitates developing naval capacity that is capable of safeguarding Egypt’s economic fortunes and preserve regional maritime security and stability. On the other hand, the southern Red Sea, is the gate to Suez Canal thus threats emanating from piracy as well as protracted conflict in Yemen are of concern to Egypt.
Against this backdrop, the Egyptian response to maritime security challenges was different in each coastline. For example, while regional arrangements played a major role in maintaining maritime security in the southern Red Sea, Egypt’s response to challenges in the Eastern Mediterranean remains unilateral and is characterized by strengthening of military and naval capabilities and extending claims to maritime space.
This paper aims at analyzing the risks and threats faced by Egypt in both the Eastern Mediterranean and the southern Red Sea. It further investigates how these challenges as well as the geopolitical structure of the two sub-regions impact Egypt’s naval strategy along the two coastal lines.
DR M. ZONDI
End-users in Naval projects tend to over-specify requirements, which can lead to several significant challenges during the development and execution of a project. This over-specification usually leads the project team to focus on minute details or features that do not significantly contribute to the project goals, resulting in unnecessary functionality that adds complexity without significant value. Pursuing these complicated features can lead to an expansion of the project scope where the project goes beyond its original goals, inflating deliverables, and timelines.
In addition, over-specification can lead to a lack of user-centred design, where the final product driven by technical specifications may not align with actual needs, preferences, or usability considerations. This mismatch often results in solutions that are impractical or difficult to use in practice. As a result, the project may suffer from complexity overload, making solutions difficult to implement, maintain, or support and prioritising compliance with detailed criteria at the expense of performance, efficiency, or scalability.
The overemphasis on detailed requirements by end-users can also lead to resistance to change, inhibiting innovation and flexibility and hindering iterative development processes that rely on feedback and continuous improvement. The rigidity that such detailed specifications bring can limit the project’s ability to adapt and evolve. This can lead to solutions that are not only costly and cumbersome to manage but also run the risk of becoming obsolete as they cannot be easily integrated with new technologies or methodologies.
To effectively overcome the above challenges, it is important to establish clear communication channels between all project stakeholders. By ensuring that everyone involved understands the requirements, their rationale, and the over-specification implications, you can proactively avoid misunderstandings and address issues. Regular reviews and updates of requirements are also crucial to ensure alignment with project goals, constraints, and evolving requirements.
A balance between specificity and flexibility is key to achieving optimal results on Navy projects. By effectively managing requirements, fostering open communication, and adapting appropriately to changing circumstances, project teams can manage the complexity of over-specified requirements and achieve successful outcomes.
CAPT(N) L. NAISHU
The nexus between maritime security and the seamless movement of goods is fundamental, ensuring both the safeguarding of maritime routes and the efficient transportation of products. This intricate interplay underscores a crucial set of issues that extends beyond logistics; it encapsulates narratives that shape our perception of the oceans and reflect a holistic understanding of oceans as facilitators of economic growth, trade, and sustainable development.Â
Maritime security threats have now extended to include, beyond piracy, human, arms trafficking and the dumping of toxic materials. Although these all pose a massive threat to maritime and human security, it was noted that the most significant challenge facing Africa today is weak institutional and systemic capacity. Even if states subscribe to laws, limited maritime capacity means that individual states, and Africa as a continent, are severely constrained in actually enforcing these laws and regulations. Based on the foregoing, what options are there for States in securing their maritime borders in view of their obligations nationally, regionally and internationally?  What viable strategies exist or must be developed to assist? In trying to respond to the topic the paper will look at the general situation in the maritime domain, break it down to appropriate subheadings and eventually briefly analyse the governance at a national level with a view that increasingly maritime security is no longer the sole prerogative of navies as more non-military agencies are now involved.
An observed challenge in most developing coastal states is the low institutional capacity for maritime security. Â This is characterised by overlapping mandates of agencies with a role in maritime security and lack of or inadequate procedures for information exchange. In conclusion the paper will endeavour to address the whether the strategy to safeguard and prosper the blue economy using Kenya as a model is ambitious, practical or wicked. Â Â Â