West & Central Africa: an introduction
Dixon Waruinge, Programme Officer, Regional Seas, Nairobi
and Abidjan Conventions
The coastal waters of West African countries from Mauritania
in the north to South Africa at the other extreme contain
highly productive ecosystems that support rich fisheries.
The coastal area also supports coastal tourism, industries
and numerous busy ports. These ecosystems provide an important
livelihood for many coastal communities.
The region, however, has seen serious conflicts resulting
in immense human suffering and poverty. In the last three
decades or so, the rapid development, improper use of resources
and extensive pollution has impacted negatively on the coastal
ecosystems. Coastal erosion and floods are key problems,
likely to be exacerbated by climate change. Destruction
of critical habitats is widespread in the convention area,
and coastal communities are both the perpetrators and victims
of this destruction.
The West and Central African region is among the oldest
Regional Seas programmes forged in the early 1980s through
an Action Plan and later a Convention for Co-operation in
the Protection and Development of the Marine and Coastal
Environment of the West and Central African Region (otherwise
known as the Abidjan Convention) and an associated Protocol
concerning pollution. After the Abidjan Convention came
into force in 1984, projects on contingency planning, pollution
control, coastal erosion, environmental impact assessment
and environmental legislation followed.
A number of difficulties, including competing priorities
and lack of resources, resulted in slow progress in activities
of the Abidjan Convention between 1990 and 2002. Today the
Abidjan Convention is back on track. Activities planned
to re-energise the Convention, include establishing a network
of focal points. The focal points will meet regularly in
a Focal Points Forum each year. The focal points will prepare
a new work programme. The Seventh Conference of Parties
(COP 7), to be held in 2005, will provide a turning point
by establishing a new ecosystem-based coordination structure.
Countries within each of the Benguela, Guinea and Canary
current ecosystems will be coordinated as autonomous units/nodes
of the Abidjan Convention.
The activities of the Abidjan Convention that are coordinated
directly by the Nairobi-based Joint Implementation Unit
of the Nairobi and Abidjan Conventions and the Abidjan-based
Regional Coordination Unit will increasingly be coordinated
at the regional level through collaborations and partnership
between the Convention and the GEF-sponsored Large Marine
Ecosystem projects under implementation in the Convention
area.
Armed with renewed goodwill from the Contracting Parties,
together with the opportunities presented through other
initiatives such as the African Process for the Development
and Management of the Coastal and Marine Resources and the
New Partnership for Africa Development (NEPAD), we can finally
begin to fulfil the promise of our potentially rich and
prosperous region and its natural splendours. The Abidjan
Convention also hopes to learn and benefit from the family
of Regional Seas programmes such as the North-East Atlantic
(OSPAR) region.
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