2019 for the GCCA+ West Africa project: bases for regional climate action

West Africa is at the frontline of climate change: five of the ten most vulnerable countries in the world are in West Africa, according to the diagnostic conducted by the GCCA+ West Africa project. Launched in 2017, this project is assisting ECOWAS and CILSS with the implementation of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change.

Five years to structure long-term climate action

Following a year of prefiguration in 2018, the GCCA+ project West Africa component started its activities in 2019. The work in 2019, supported by the initial diagnostic conducted in 2018, consisted in laying solid foundations to structure long-term regional climate action. The action plan provides for:

• Strengthening the institutional leadership of ECOWAS on the climate, 

• Supporting the implementation of the Paris Agreement in ECOWAS Member States,

• Improving information and research on the data and impacts of climate change,

• Creating training programmes on climate change,

• Financing pilot adaptation projects in the rural development and agriculture sectors,

• Increasing access to climate finance.

Details of the action in 2019:

Mobilising stakeholders in the region on the climate issue

The mobilisation of regional and national stakeholders from the ECOWAS-CILSS area and their cooperation is a specific issue for the project to ensure that the action in the region is coherent and effective. In 2019, the emphasis was therefore placed on strengthening coordination between the stakeholders to ensure that the projects are implemented effectively until their completion. In this respect, one of the project’s main objectives is to launch a regional climate strategy. The groundwork for this regional strategy was laid during a regional workshop for strategic reflection on climate action organised in September 2019.

This regional action is combined with support for four countries – Guinea-Bissau, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Togo – for the implementation and revision of the commitments they made in 2015 during the Climate COP, the “Nationally Determined Contributions” (NDCs).

At a more operational level, four pilot projects have been selected following a call for project proposals that aimed to bring about innovations for climate-smart family farming in West Africa. The objective of the GCCA+ West Africa project from now until 2022 is to finance fifteen pilot climate change adaptation projects.

Popularise climate subjects, a key issue

Another key issue for the climate action is to make information about climate change accessible and understandable. “Nationally Determined Contributions” (NDCs) are still only for insiders, whereas the subject should be known and grasped by all, starting with policy-makers”, explained Alain Sy Traoré, Director of Agriculture and Rural Development at the ECOWAS Commission, in June 2019.

For example, one of the objectives of the GCCA+ project is to create training programmes on climate change in the region. The 2019-2020 cycle of the Master’s “Climate Change and Sustainable Development” trained 25 West African students, including 20 scholarship holders from the GCCA+ West Africa project, 9 of whom were women.

2019-2020 class of the Master’s “Climate Change and Sustainable Development”  

This class was trained by experts from the AGHRYMET Regional Centre, professionals and lecturers-researchers from the CILSS-ECOWAS area. It learnt about a wide range of subjects: the scientific bases of climate change, its impacts on strategic sectors such as agriculture, water resources, energy, coastal erosion and the responses required to adapt to climate risks and mitigate greenhouse gas emissions. The students were also trained in mainstreaming climate change into public policies, climate governance (climate negotiations and finance, implementation of the Paris Agreement), as well as project management and monitoring-evaluation. The group work built a team spirit supporting the same cause of contributing to climate action in their countries and in West Africa.
 

For further reading: Training for journalists to more effectively process climate information