In collaboration with the Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development of the Republic of Cte d’Ivoire and the United Nations Environment Programme, the ECOWAS Commission, through its Directorate of Environment and Natural Resources, organizes, from Tuesday 08 to Thursday 10 March 2022, in Abidjan, a regional technical meeting for the preparation of the report on the state of the environment and climate in West Africa.
This meeting featured experts from specialized institutions such as the AGRHYMET Centre and International Union for Conservation of Nature.
The workshop aims to identify the regional indicators, examine the data at the level of Specialized Institutions, and then to agree on a framework of collaboration that will guide the development of the report on the environment.
Mr. KOFFI Yao Bernard Head of Environment and Climate Change Division introduced the workshop. He recalled the regional context and said that the workshop was one of the most important stages in the preparation and publication of the regional report. This workshop is a follow-up to the Abuja 2018 regional meeting, which identified the main themes of the report and gave an outline.
The opening ceremony was marked by two speeches, in particular that of the Representative-Resident of ECOWAS, Madam Ambassador Fanta CISSE and that of Mr. Parfait KOUADIO, Director of Cabinet, representing the Minister of Environment and Development Durable from Ivory Coast.
Mrs CISSE recalled what had happened at the workshop and called for the attention of experts to the environmental degradation and depletion of natural resources as well the increasingly perceptible climate impacts at all levels (local, national, regional, global, sub-regional, and regional). She then underlined ECOWAS’ desire to have a regional report on the state of the environment and climate. This report will serve as a reference document to help better understand the environment, natural resource, and climate. It will also include trends in their evolution. Current responses as well as those that can be provided in terms or policies, strategies, and investments that promote sustainable development are all taken into consideration. She invited regional specialized institutions to provide the data and information necessary to inform the environmental-climate indicators that will also be agreed upon during the workshop to report the current state of the environment in West Africa. The report will also make visible the assets, potentialities and role of natural resources and the environment in the region in transforming societies to make them resilient and sustainable.
After thanking the President ECOWAS Commission for hosting this workshop in Abidjan and addressing the representatives of the Ivorian Ministers of Environment and Sustainable Development Mr. Parfait Kouadio, he greeted all of the experts. He congratulated ECOWAS Commission and was pleased that each ECOWAS Member state could be included in the regional report’s annexe. In this regard, he thanked the Commission for the support provided to Cte d’Ivoire for the preparation of its national report on the state of the environment like other ECOWAS Member States and declared opened the studio.
This workshop will be populated by eleven (11) presentations, followed by discussions.
- The context of the meeting, with the objectives and expected outcomes;
- There are many analytical approaches to preparing reports about the state of the climate and environment.
- The ECOWAS approach for developing regional environmental outlooks
- The region’s main environmental hotspots;
- Sets of core indicators for each region under the various themes
- The basic datasets for the various themes;
- The data collection format/framework
- Data visualization;
- The main driving forces of change: Soils/Landscapes/Climate change, Forest/Biodiversity/Climate, Water/ Biodiv /Climate change, Air/Pollutions, Cross- Cutting-edge issues
- Partners agree to contribute; selection of site(s), analysis, and interpretation data;
- The regional working group on data- and information partners discussed.
These three days should be able to (i), have regional climate and environmental indicators, and (ii), gather the data and information that are available, and (iii), establish a collaborative framework for all institutions.
The ECOWAS delegation to this workshop is led by Her Excellency Ambassador Fanta CISSE, Resident Representative of ECOWAS in Cte d’Ivoire. She is assisted at this workshop by Mr. Yao Bernard Kofi, PPO Environment and Climate Change in the Directorate of Environment and Natural Resources.
