The disruption of traffic through the Strait of Hormuz is exposing a vulnerability that extends beyond the Middle East: Africa possesses some of the world’s most important energy and mineral resources and sits astride critical maritime corridors, yet remains heavily dependent on external powers for the security, infrastructure and systems that govern those routes.
As global trade adapts to a more fragmented maritime environment, Africa has an opportunity to move from being primarily a supplier of commodities and a transit geography to becoming an active participant in the governance, financing and development of the corridors that increasingly underpin global economic security. The argument, advanced by maritime strategist Rafael Shikhani, places maritime power, energy security and regional integration at the centre of Africa’s next strategic development phase.
Hormuz Exposes Africa’s Maritime Vulnerability
The continuing disruption around the Strait of Hormuz has highlighted the extent to which African economies remain exposed to events taking place beyond the continent’s borders.
The vulnerability is not new. The Russia-Ukraine war produced similar disruptions to energy, food and commodity markets, demonstrating how geopolitical shocks in strategically important regions can rapidly transmit into African economies.
But the Hormuz crisis raises a broader question: whether Africa can continue to rely on maritime systems largely designed, protected and controlled by external powers while possessing increasingly important resources and trade routes of its own.
Africa’s strategic geography gives it an unusually important position in the emerging maritime system. The continent borders the Atlantic and Indian oceans and sits alongside the Mediterranean, while several major routes, including the Red Sea, Suez Canal, Mozambique Channel and Cape of Good Hope—connect global markets to African economies.
From Maritime Vulnerability to Strategic Opportunity
The emerging “post-Hormuz era” does not necessarily mean the disappearance of the Strait’s importance. Rather, it points towards a more polycentric maritime system in which global economic security increasingly depends on multiple interconnected corridors. That could elevate Africa’s strategic importance.
The Mozambique Channel, Western Indian Ocean, Cape of Good Hope and Atlantic approaches could become increasingly important as shipping companies, energy producers and global traders seek resilient alternatives and diversified routes.
This creates an opportunity for African states to develop the infrastructure and institutions required to capture greater value from their geography.
Ports, shipping services, maritime insurance, ship repair, logistics, coastal security and marine data are therefore no longer peripheral economic issues. They are increasingly linked to trade competitiveness and national economic security.
Africa’s Maritime Strategy Remains Largely Underdeveloped
The challenge is that Africa already possesses the basic architecture for a continental maritime strategy, but implementation remains limited.
The African Union adopted the 2050 Africa’s Integrated Maritime Strategy in 2014, while the African Charter on Safety, Security and Development was adopted in 2016. Yet the gap between continental commitments and operational capability remains significant.
African maritime interests also vary considerably.
The Gulf of Guinea faces piracy and crude oil theft. The Western Indian Ocean confronts illegal fishing and trafficking, while North African states face different security and migration pressures in the Mediterranean. These divergent priorities have historically encouraged national and subregional responses rather than a genuinely integrated continental maritime policy.
The cost of building maritime surveillance, coastguard capabilities, intelligence systems, naval assets and logistical infrastructure has also encouraged continued reliance on foreign partners.
Regional Cooperation Could Provide a Starting Point
A continental maritime strategy does not necessarily require every African state to build identical capabilities. A more practical approach could involve a coalition of maritime-capable countries working through existing regional structures.
Countries including Nigeria, South Africa, Egypt, Morocco, Kenya, Angola and Senegal possess significant maritime interests and could potentially serve as anchor states for deeper cooperation.
There is already an African precedent.
The Yaoundé Architecture, developed by Gulf of Guinea states, created regional coordination and information-sharing mechanisms that contributed to reducing piracy in the region. Extending similar mechanisms into other African maritime zones could provide a foundation for wider cooperation.
Technology Can Strengthen Maritime Domain Awareness
A modern African maritime strategy would also depend heavily on technology.
Shared satellite surveillance, radar systems, vessel tracking, intelligence fusion and interoperable coastguards could allow countries to monitor maritime activity more effectively without each government having to build entirely independent systems.
For Africa’s energy and mineral sectors, the implications are particularly important. Better maritime domain awareness could help protect offshore oil and gas assets, mineral exports, ports and shipping lanes while improving the security of increasingly important trade corridors.
It could also create opportunities for African technology companies, satellite operators and maritime service providers to participate in a growing regional security and logistics ecosystem.
Energy Security Is Part of the Maritime Equation
One of the most important implications of the post-Hormuz environment is the relationship between maritime security and energy security.
Africa remains a major producer of crude oil and natural gas but many of its economies continue to import refined petroleum products. That structure leaves producers exposed to disruptions in international shipping even when the underlying resource is available domestically.
Building refining capacity and strategic petroleum storage could therefore become part of a broader African resilience strategy.
The objective would be to retain more value within African economies while reducing exposure to external supply disruptions and volatile international freight routes.
Nigeria’s expanding refining capacity provides one example of how this shift could occur, while other African producers have an opportunity to develop complementary infrastructure around storage, processing, ports and regional fuel distribution.
Strategic Context: Maritime Infrastructure and AfCFTA
Maritime development also intersects directly with the African Continental Free Trade Area. Africa cannot fully realize the benefits of continental trade integration without efficient ports, shipping connections, inland logistics networks and secure trade corridors.
Ports are effectively the physical infrastructure through which regional integration becomes commercially possible.
Investment in African maritime infrastructure could therefore have effects extending far beyond shipping. Modern ports and logistics systems can support manufacturing, mineral processing, agricultural exports, energy trade and regional supply chains.
The opportunity is to develop maritime infrastructure not merely as transport assets, but as industrial and economic platforms.
AFNIS Insight
The post-Hormuz environment offers Africa an important strategic lesson: geography only creates power when countries possess the institutions and infrastructure required to use it.
Africa sits alongside some of the world’s most important maritime corridors and possesses substantial energy and mineral resources. Yet much of the value generated by those resources continues to flow through externally controlled logistics, shipping, insurance, financing and security systems.
That creates a significant opportunity for African policymakers and investors.
A stronger continental maritime agenda could support investment in ports, shipbuilding, repair facilities, coastal surveillance, maritime insurance, refining, strategic storage and digital ocean intelligence. These are not simply security investments; they are components of a broader economic infrastructure capable of supporting industrialization and regional trade.
The immediate priority should not be another continental strategy document. It should be implementation: operationalizing existing frameworks, developing common surveillance systems, creating sustainable financing mechanisms and connecting maritime infrastructure to AfCFTA trade corridors.
The post-Hormuz era may ultimately prove less about the decline of one chokepoint than the emergence of a more distributed global maritime system. Africa has the geography to become central to that system. The strategic question is whether it will build the capacity to capture the opportunity.