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World Bank: Somali piracy likely to return

Navy patrols and armed guards on ships have helped supress once rampant Somali piracy, but without political solutions on the ground attacks are likely to return, the World Bank warned on Thursday.

Political solutions to be financed by the World Bank and administered by the UNHCR, of course...

Although the number of pirate attacks from Somalia are at a three-year low, expensive measures including international patrols in the Gulf of Aden and Indian Ocean are not a long-term solution to the problem, it said in a report. Co-author Quy-Toan Do said, "These are only effective as long as they remain in place: they would have to be permanent to prevent any resurgence of piracy. Because of the high cost of these counter-measures, in the long run they may simply be unsustainable."

The report noted that a long term solution is "first and foremost political". It said, "Pirates rely on onshore support to conduct negotiations and to secure safe access to coastal territories. In turn, politically powerful figures capture large portions of the profits associated with piracy," it added, calculating that between $315-385 million has been paid in ransoms since 2005.

But the cost to world trade is higher still, the report said, noting that while an estimated $53 million was paid on average annually in ransoms since 2005, with an estimated $18 billion yearly loss to the world economy in terms of increased cost of trade.
Posted by: ryuge 2013-04-12

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