The Yaoundé Architecture strengthens its pool of YARIS trainers

[Abidjan-ARSTM, 15 December 2023] The Permanent Secretary for State Action at Sea, represented by Colonel AKE Josée Nicole, chaired the closing ceremony of the train of trainers session in the use of YARIS (Yaoundé Architecture Regional Information System), in the presence of the Director of ISMI and trainers from the European GoGIN II project. He congratulated the 14 new trainers from the Yaoundé Architecture maritime centres, who will help maritime managers and operators to fully master this maritime surveillance tool. In his view, despite the decline in insecurity in the Gulf of Guinea, it is necessary to master the communication tools in order to guarantee the long-term safety and security not only of ships but also of the Gulf of Guinea as a whole.

YARIS trainers available in Yaoundé architecture centres

The YARIS platform was developed jointly by the Yaoundé Architecture (YA) and the GoGIN project, funded by the European Union and implemented by Expertise France. YARIS has gradually become the YA’s information system and now links more than 150 maritime centres (the Architecture’s regional and zonal centres and the national administrations of the 19 Gulf of Guinea countries).
To fully master this powerful tool, a pool of trainers must be available as close as possible to the users. This is why the Yaoundé Architecture has joined forces with GoGIN II and ISMI-ARSTM to provide an initial train-the-trainer session for YARIS.

From 4 to 15 December 2023, fourteen participants from YA maritime centres practised using YARIS, under the mentoring of three expert-trainers from the GoGIN II project and CRESMAC. As well as mastering all the system’s functionalities, these new trainers acquired skills in surveillance and detection of suspicious or high-risk vessels transiting the waters of the Gulf of Guinea, the challenge being to share information effectively within the authorities of the Gulf of Guinea with a view to combating maritime security threats.

The new trainers come from all over the Yaoundé architecture: regional centres (CIC, CRESMAO, CRESMAC), zonal centres (MMCCs in zones D, E, F and G), and national reference centres in Cape Verde, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Benin, Cameroon, Angola and Gabon, as well as ISMI.

Authorities testify

According to the Permanent Secretary in charge of State Action at Sea in Côte d’Ivoire,

« We can conclude that with YARIS, the AY has an operational tool to monitor all the coasts of the Gulf of Guinea in a totally sovereign manner. This training can therefore legitimately be seen as the first stage in the transfer of sovereignty of YARIS to the political authorities overseeing the AY». 

At the closing ceremony, the Director of ISMI, Colonel AKE Abé Lazare, noted that “the effectiveness of a global security strategy obviously depends on operational resources and the adoption of an appropriate legal framework, but also on the ability of the various players to collect, analyse and disseminate information in order to target risks, define response strategies and guide interventions. The YARIS tool is the one adopted by the Yaoundé architecture to carry out this mission of fusing maritime information; hence the importance of this training in the use of this tool”.

Listen to his interview below.