Ghana Maritime Authority, Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority and the Danish Maritime Authority collaborate to strengthen Ghana’s maritime sector.

About 90 percent of Ghana’s - and West Africa’s – international trade is handled by sea. Further development of the Blue Economy in Ghana and the region is, thus, dependent on Ghana continuously strengthening its maritime sector and its maritime governance framework.

Denmark is a seafaring nation; home to the fifth biggest merchant vessel fleet in the world and one of the world’s biggest shipping companies, Maersk.

In 2015, the Danish Maritime Authority (DMA) established a strategic sector cooperation with the Ghana Maritime Authority (GMA) and the Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority (GPHA). The purpose of the collaboration was to support Ghana’s efforts to become the Sub-Saharan maritime hub, leveraging on the potential of the new and advanced Meridian Port Services (MPS) Tema Terminal 3. With its inauguration in June 2019, Ghana became home to the deepest, largest, and most technically advanced container terminal in Africa.

Maritime Strategic Sector Cooperation, Phase III (2022-2025)

In 2022, Denmark and Ghana embarked on an ambitious, green phase encompassing focus on enhancing maritime safety on Lake Volta. The Green Agenda was initiated by the Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Denmark, Mette Frederiksen, and the President of the Republic of Ghana, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, in Accra already on 24 November 2021 . Signing into a Letter of Intent, Denmark and Ghana committed on ensuring a focus on environmental sustainable solutions and working for the Zero Emission Shipping Mission , which both countries supports. The objective for the Mission is for 5 % of the global deep-sea fleet being capable of running on zero-emission fuels by 2030.

Key thematic areas include:

• Contributing to the green transition in the maritime industry by collaborating with Ghana on its green agenda, and to make the Port of Tema a recognised green port and the preferred transhipment hub in Sub-Saharan Africa.
  
  
• Enhancing navigational safety on Lake Volta with a new, state-of-the-art digital infrastructure to identify and present danger areas on Lake Volta to prevent vessel accidents.
  
  
• Complying with international standards on commercial fishing and work for more sustainable fishery by implementing the Standards of Training Certification and Watch-keeping for Fishermen (STCW-F) and follow-up on IMO Member State Audit Scheme (IMSAS) audit.
  
  
• Developing the capacity of Ghanaian pilots and tugboat masters to manage complex and larger container vessels and optimize the management of daily operations in the Tema Port.
  

Maritime Strategic Sector Cooperation, Phase II (2019-2022)

Key achievements included:

• Experts from the DMA and the GMA continued to simulate internal and external audits of maritime actors strengthening Ghana’s position as a leading maritime actor.
  
  
• Tugboat captains from GPHA further improved their qualifications in Denmark using advanced ship simulators mirroring conditions of the Tema MPS Terminal 3. This enabled the tugboat masters to test the limits of the tugboats, when handling bigger container vessels, without running the risk of damaging people or property.
  
  
• The e-navigation platform developed in Phase I was further enhanced through inter-agency collaboration with key maritime stakeholders in Ghana ensuring a more effective and safe maritime environment in Ghanaian waters. This resulted in Ghana now being able to promulgate real-time Maritime Safety Information (MSI) such as Navigational Warnings and Notices to Mariners.

Maritime Strategic Sector Cooperation, Phase I (2015-2018)

Key achievements included:

• Ghana leapfrogged into the future by being only the fourth country in the world, and the first in Africa, to introduce advanced e-navigation technology, benefitting all users in the maritime domain from large commercial vessels to small fishing boats.
  
  
• Enhanced capacity of Ghanaian sea pilots focused on the safe handling of the large vessels calling port in the new MPS Tema Port.
  
  
• Increased focus on the implementation of IMO standards.
  
  
• Mutual improvement of vessel inspectors in Denmark and Ghana through reciprocal seminars and workshops.