Facilitating Collaboration to Improve Global Maritime Domain Awareness

Why: 90% of the world’s trade is conducted by sea. In addition to legal exchange of goods, trans-oceanic shipping can be a haven for black markets, human trafficking, and illegal drugs. To maintain its viability as supply channel, the shipping industry must ensure the safety and security of the waterways, the ships, and the crews that operate them.

What: To improve global maritime domain awareness, federal agencies jointly identified systemic gaps and identified non-material solutions to address them – tuning existing national capabilities to address broader audiences. The solutions ranged from improved information sharing, adhering to a common lexicon, standardizing ship identification markings, and cross-training of agency personnel.