On August 22, 2024, a new international organization called the International Organization for Marine Aids to Navigation (IALA) was born. This organization is a successor to the International Association of Marine Aids to Navigation and Lighthouse Authorities, which had been operating as a non-profit organization that established international standards for aids to navigation. This article provides an overview of the organization, the background to its establishment, and the efforts of the Japan Coast Guard.

The UK's maritime policy has achieved a harmony between the two contradictory policy issues of promoting technological innovation and reducing social risks, based on a long-term strategy to establish a leading position in the global maritime field. In Japan, too, it is essential to establish an agile policy formation process through gradual demonstrations beginning with relatively low-risk areas and through public-private collaboration, while ensuring the regulatory flexibility suggested by the UK's policy approach.

The Ocean Kyoiku Center was established in September 2013 to address the problem of seafarer shortages across the entire coastal shipping industry in Japan, and to contribute to supply the stable coastal shipping services and to maintain and revitalize the Japanese industry by securing sufficient seafarers and improving their qualifications. We will soon be conducting the "General Safety Manager Examination and Ship Operation Manager Examination" on behalf of the government, working hard to start the examination in the spring of 2025. We do hope that the examination system will reduce passenger ship accidents significantly.

After the Great East Japan Earthquake, tsunami countermeasures advanced with the goal of "protecting human lives at all costs." This was realized through setting two levels of tsunami prevention measures, publicizing flood predictions, establishing temporary evacuation facilities, and constructing embankments using private capital. In the future, climate change and population decline are expected to progress further, increasing the vulnerability to disasters, particularly in rural coastal areas. For future coastal disaster prevention, it is important to internalize these external factors and examine them in an integrated fashion.