Somalia loses around US$300 million a year to illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing in its vast waters. Boasting Africa’s longest coastline – approximately 3 333 km along the northern Indian Ocean and Gulf of Aden – the country’s seas are highly lucrative for both legal and illegal fishing operations. Weak governance, political instability and lack of effective law enforcement aggravate the problem.
To address this, Türkiye and Somalia signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) in February 2024 establishing the Turkish Armed Forces as a partner in Somalia’s maritime security and law enforcement for the next 10 years.
Most illegal fishing in Somalia is carried out by foreign fishing vessels from countries like China, Iran, South Korea, Taiwan, Spain and other European nations. A Mogadishu-based researcher who spoke anonymously to ENACT confirmed that some foreign vessel operators obtain fishing licences through illegal means. ‘There is no way for the government to know how much fish has been taken as they rarely report back,’ he told ENACT. ‘They process the fish and export to international markets.’
But the problem is also closer to home, with some federal member states, such as Puntland and Somaliland, issuing their own licences without consulting Somalia’s federal government.
In the early 2000s, with the near depletion of its domestic stock due to IUU fishing, hundreds of Somali fishermen turned to highly risky but lucrative piracy to ‘protect’ the country’s resources and support their threatened livelihoods through ransom-taking. It took interventions by multinational naval forces to eliminate the threat and restore normalcy to Somalia’s coastal waters.
In 2011, President Recep Erdogan, at the time Türkiye’s prime minister, made a historic visit to Somalia and reopened its embassy in Mogadishu. The ongoing relationship has been a game changer for Somalia’s security and development, with Türkiye embarking on ambitious long-term investment plans while the rest of the world shunned the war-ravaged country.
Türkiye provided the largest amount of international aid in the wake of a severe drought in Somalia in 2011, and has invested over US$100 million in the country’s economy. These investments span specialised combat training schools, hospitals, educational institutions and municipal services.
More recently, Türkiye has invested in the exploration and extraction of vast hydrocarbon deposits off Somalia’s lengthy coastline. Turkish soft power, buoyed by cultural, historical and religious affinity with the Muslim-majority nation, appears to be paying off.
Under the terms of the latest deals between the two countries, Somalia will outsource the protection of its territorial waters and marine resources to Türkiye over the next 10 years. Türkiye will strengthen Somalia’s maritime security capabilities through training, joint operations, information sharing and naval acquisition.
It is expected that the maritime defence pact will also offer Somalia’s naval forces the reconstruction, equipment and training needed to monitor and curb the ever-increasing IUU fishing in its waters.
In return, Türkiye is expected to receive 30% of the revenue from Somalia’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ) and control of gas and oil explorations, where it is estimated that Somalia has a potential 30 billion barrels of oil and gas.
It is not known how the deal will impact the semi-autonomous region of Puntland and the breakaway Somaliland, which have similar arrangements with other regional powers.
Türkiye has a strong track record in implementing security sector capacity building in Somalia. This includes training specialised elite units, establishing Camp TURKSOM (a Turkish military base), selling unmanned aerial vehicles to Somalia, operating Mogadishu’s main airport and seaport, and participating in counterterrorism airstrikes against al-Shabaab.
Given this, it is highly likely that its promise to invest in building Somalia’s naval capacity will succeed. This will enhance the country’s ability to control its maritime zone, apprehend rogue IUU vessels, curb toxic dumping and avert piracy from returning to its waters in collaboration with Turkish naval forces.
However, challenges still exist. An MOU signed at the beginning of 2024 between landlocked Ethiopia and the unrecognised Republic of Somaliland could complicate the equation. Although the exact terms of the MOU are unclear, the gist is that in return for Ethiopia’s recognition of Somaliland, it will allow Ethiopia sea access and a military base in the strategic Gulf of Aden.
Somalia initially saw this as a violation of its sovereignty and demanded that Addis Ababa cancel the deal. However, in December 2024, Türkiye facilitated a meeting between Somalia and Ethiopia resulting in the Ankara Declaration, which has eased tensions between the two countries regarding sea access. However, the Türkiye-Somalia maritime cooperation agreement may exacerbate tensions between Somalia and Somaliland, should Somalia attempt to extend its jurisdiction over Somaliland’s EEZ.
Somalia has been a site of intense competition between the ‘great powers’ of the United States, United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Qatar, the United Kingdom and China, among others. Many of these countries have invested in commercial ports, health and education, counterterrorism, security sector capacity support (by paying for salaries and training) and infrastructural development.
These nations may not be impressed with the growing exclusive access and offers Somalia has given to Türkiye. The Somalia-Türkiye deal could irk some into withdrawing or scaling down their crucial security sector and development support. This will slow the pace of recovery for Somalia’s governance structures and security sector.
For Somalia, it’s an intricate balancing act. It needs to keep Türkiye its key maritime partner, focused on assisting it in enforcing control over its seas to curb IUU.
But as it builds its naval capacity over the next decade, Somalia should take cognisance of the myriad international, regional and internal challenges it faces and find working solutions in a bid to rebuild a more peaceful future with its neighbours and international partners.
Samira Aden Abdi, ENACT Nairobi and Halkano Wario, ROCO East Africa
Image: ROBERTO SCHMIDT / AFP
