Description
This work analyzes how Portuguese-speaking African Countries (PALOP) conduct and receive maritime diplomacy actions across overlapping multilateral and interregional frameworks in the South Atlantic. Mapping these layers - such as CPLP, ZOPACAS, regional coordination centers under the Yaoundé Architecture, and African Union initiatives - the study highlights how institutional redundancies and fragmented mandates shape the practice of ocean governance. Drawing on African and t South Atlantic perspectives, it examines the tensions and opportunities created by this institutional density, particularly in addressing piracy, illicit trade, and environmental threats. Rather than prescribing new designs, the analysis contributes a critical account of how PALOP actors navigate and negotiate across these frameworks, showing how overlapping arrangements affect both regional agency and the articulation of Global South approaches to ocean governance. In conclusion, it reflects on how these dynamics illuminate the broader challenges of multilateralism and trans-scalar governance in the South Atlantic. Based on trans-scalar ocean governance, these structures must go beyond naval collaboration to encompass aerial and satellite surveillance capabilities, enhancing regional efforts to leverage the utility of technologies to support African decision-making on maritime security governance.
