Every day thousands of maritime data are collected and stored from various sources, but they need to be selected, shared and formatted for being understandable and become a genuine maritime surveillance tool. With the EU CRIMARIO project, with the collaboration of the Regional Maritime Information Fusion Centre (RMIFC) eleven professional of Madagascar strengthened their skills in maritime data visualisation from 30 January to 10 February in Antananarivo.
For any State, it is important to ensure maritime security and safety in its waters and how to contribute to those on the high seas. The exchange of information is crucial for ensuring an efficient action of the State at sea. At first, the exchange must be effective between the various agencies (Transport, Navy, Police, Environment, Coast Guard, Fishery, etc.) because not all events at sea are related to only one Ministry. Secondly, the exchange is built between partner States within regional cooperation because the high seas, as international area, must not host offender and criminals.
Exchange of maritime information is in the heart of EU CRIMARIO action. Its training activities implemented in the region aim to strengthen the skills of the coastal States of the Western Indian Ocean. From January 30th to February 10th, eleven professionals from Madagascar intensively manipulated ship positioning data, reprocessing them using spreadsheet, database and mapping software (GIS). With those good computer skills, they are now able to select the relevant data, to map the vessel movements, and to analyse their tracks. These professionals were selected after tests, passed during a first session, held in Antananarivo last December.
After this second session, some participants who succeeded the tests will be selected for becoming trainers, during a specific session from 20 March to 7 April 2017 in Madagascar.
The objective of this curricula is that Madagascar has a pool of specialists able to identify suspicious ship behavior, verify and share it at the national and / or regional level, and then alert those responsible.
The 11 participants belong to the various agencies involved in the action of State at sea in Madagascar: State Department in charge of Sea; Geographical Institute (FTM); Ministry in charge of presidential projects and Country planning; Fishery Surveillance Centre; Regional Maritime Information Fusion Centre (RMIFC); Ministry of National Defense; Customs Directorate.
CRIMARIO works in close collaboration with RMIFC; the mission of this centre is to gather, analyze and fuse maritime information in order to anticipate maritime risks and threats in the west coast of the Indian Ocean.
In 2017 a second curricula, focused on analysis of maritime data will be launched by CRIMARIO to the benefit of Madagascar.