This archive report was first published on 10 September 2021.
On September 10, 2021, the global shipping industry made a significant move by removing Kenya's maritime waters from the piracy red list, a designation that had been in place for 12 years.
This decision, communicated to the International Maritime Organisation (IMO), is expected to save Kenya and East Africa millions of shillings in insurance and security expenses, and potentially open up Kenya's ports to more business.
The removal of Kenya from the piracy red list comes after a heightened campaign by the country to end the labelling of its waters as high-risk, which had made shipping prohibitively expensive and threatened the nascent blue economy.
Kenyan maritime waters were initially designated as a high-risk area in 2009 by the BMP-5, a group comprising five of the largest global shipping industry associations.
The designation was made in response to increased incidents of piracy in the Indian Ocean, including in Kenyan waters.
However, thanks to increased surveillance and joint maritime patrols by the Kenya Coast Guard Services and the Kenya Navy, piracy incidents in Kenyan waters have significantly decreased, with no incidents recorded since 2017.
