The African Maritime World Orphaned by Colonel Barthélemy Gbaka Blédé
The African maritime sector is in mourning. According to the online media outlet Guidiga24_MEDIA, Colonel Barthélemy Gbaka Blédé passed away on Tuesday, April 22, 2025.
Barthélemy Blédé was a maritime expert whose areas of expertise included maritime security, governance, the blue economy, port management, and the involvement of non-state actors in securing the maritime sector.
A graduate of the Bordeaux School of Maritime Business Administration and the World Maritime University in Malmö, Colonel Blédé had over 35 years of experience in the maritime sector in West and Central Africa. He notably stood out as project manager for the implementation of the ISPS Code at the Port of Abidjan between 2004 and 2011, and later as a senior maritime security researcher at the Dakar office of the Institute for Security Studies from 2014 to 2017.
Mr. Blédé also served as the Lead Expert for the SWAIMS project and liaison officer for this project at CRESMAO for five years. Prior to joining SWAIMS, Blédé contributed to the drafting of major projects, including two funded by the UNDP on Côte d’Ivoire’s blue economy, and one funded by the World Bank for the revision of the Guinean merchant shipping code.
Since 2013, he had been delivering training modules on maritime security and transnational organized crime at the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre in Accra.
As author and co-author of numerous reports and articles, he also published several significant contributions on our platform, Maritimafrica, including:
- https://maritimafrica.com/en/should-west-africa-remain-absent-from-maritime-transport/
- https://maritimafrica.com/en/the-blue-economy-is-not-just-about-the-environment/
Most recently, in February 2025, he was appointed Team Leader for West and Central Africa as part of Specific Objective 3 (SO3) of the Safe Seas for Africa project, implemented by the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR), Division for Peace.
Colonel Barthélemy Blédé leaves behind a tremendous void in the African maritime community. Our deepest thoughts are with his family, loved ones, and all those who had the privilege of working with him.
