Africa risks repeating an old pattern with a new resource if it fails to take control of the industries growing around its oceans, lakes and rivers, Tom Kirkwood, chief executive and co-founder of the Bahari Network, has said after the maiden Blue Africa Conference and Exhibition (BACE) in Lagos.
The two-day gathering, organised by Bahari Network in collaboration with the Maritime Organisation of West and Central Africa (MOWCA) and endorsed by Nigeria’s Federal Ministry of Marine and Blue Economy, was held on 13 and 14 August at the Lagos Continental Hotel, Victoria Island. Eighteen countries took part, drawn first from West and Central Africa.
Kirkwood said the event was conceived to shift the blue economy conversation from climate and sustainability alone to business, ownership and investment. Sustainability mattered, he argued, but the sector was also “about economic value and the balance sheet.”
“Africans, as a people across the continent, have an opportunity right now to take custodianship of the enormous industries and opportunities connected to our oceans, lakes and rivers. If we fail to get this right at this stage, we could lose a major opportunity.”
He warned that monopolies were already forming in parts of the sector and that many of them were not African-owned. Without a stronger African presence, he said, the economic benefits of the blue economy could flow out of the continent in the same way as some other natural resources.
Why Lagos and Why Now
Kirkwood said Nigeria was a natural host. The country is Africa’s largest market, sits on the Gulf of Guinea, and has created a dedicated Ministry of Marine and Blue Economy — a signal, in his view, that Abuja wants the sector developed.
He also pointed to the Gulf of Guinea’s historic role as a trade corridor and argued that it could be revitalised as an African route linking the continent to itself and to the rest of the world, even as attention stays fixed on chokepoints such as the Strait of Hormuz.
Nigeria’s blue economy is still relatively young, he said. That was an opportunity, not a weakness.
He cited projections that the sector could grow from about $300 billion and some 50 million jobs to as much as $1.5 trillion by 2050 — but only if governments, businesses and young people across Africa understand the opportunities and engage with them.
From talk to deals
The first edition, Kirkwood said, was heavy on conversation. Future editions are meant to be heavier on transactions. Bahari Network plans to introduce deal rooms built around specific projects, bringing investors and partners into the same room as African governments and businesses so that “people can actually do business and close deals rather than simply talk.”
An exhibition was included from the start for the same reason. Countries such as Norway, he said, have used technology to open up ocean industries; African firms need access to those tools.
The immediate lesson from the 18 national delegations, he added, was that almost every participating country already has projects that need capital. “They were interested in meeting investors and partners who could help them develop those projects.”
For the next cycle, countries have been invited to bring those projects to the platform. Bahari Network will profile the marine sectors of the 18 states that attended, produce content around the schemes they want promoted, and try to connect them with investors beyond their existing networks.
A Lagos anchor, a continental network
Kirkwood said Bahari Network would prefer to keep the main annual conference in Lagos indefinitely, citing the Africa Mining Indaba in Cape Town as an example of an event that gained value by staying in one city and becoming part of the calendar. Travel across Africa remains difficult, he noted, and a fixed hub makes the conversation easier to sustain.
He was struck that many delegates — including officials whose work depends on regional links — were visiting Lagos for the first time. That, he said, underlined the need for more intra-African travel.
Smaller events could still move from country to country. The flagship gathering, in his view, should stay in Lagos, which he described as strategically placed as port investment grows along the Gulf of Guinea.
MOWCA’s involvement, he added, was part of a larger ambition: to move from a West and Central African maritime body toward a more continental organisation so Africa can speak with one voice on trade routes, investment and international maritime questions. Bahari Network is already engaging South Africa and Kenya, which have more developed blue-economy structures, and aims over five years to have West, East, North, Central and Southern Africa in the room.
Bahari Network and a Maritime Bank of Africa
Bahari Network was built as the engine behind the platform, not only as a conference organiser. Kirkwood said it would run a news service, a business directory to make it easier for Africans to find counterparts in other countries, and a video channel, Blue TV. Over time the group also wants to invest directly in blue-economy ventures and become a pan-African network of business leaders in the sector.
One of the largest ideas now on the table with MOWCA is a Maritime Bank of Africa. Kirkwood said such an institution could help African businesses move goods and money without routing every transaction through Europe or the United States, ease financing constraints, and support a more self-sustaining African economy.
He linked that agenda to the African Continental Free Trade Area: without stronger maritime logistics, he said, continental free trade would be much harder to realise. The same waters, he added, also hold answers on food through aquaculture and on power through green and other ocean-based energy.
Success over five years, in his telling, would mean greater cohesion in Africa’s maritime agenda, representation from every region, progress toward the maritime bank, and a measurable flow of investment into the sector through the platform.
“Year after year, we will measure the outcomes of our engagement,” he said, “and continue building on them to ensure that the conference and the wider Bahari Network produce real and measurable impact.”
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