Members of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) have commenced action on the preparation of an ECOWAS Regional State of the Environmental and Outlook Report. An inception meeting for the preparation of the report was held in Abuja, Nigeria, during 16-18 October, 2018.
The meeting was attended by the heads of environmental agencies and the national focal points responsible for environmental reporting in the member countries, senior policy and technical staff from ECOWAS Project Partners, international and regional organizations, academic and research institutions and collaborating centres. Participants included Representatives from the UNEP, AfDB, FAO, WABiCC Project/USAID, SERVIR project/USAID, WASCAL, AGRYHMET, Abidjan Convention, Mano River Union, CSE – Senegal, Basel Convention Coordinating Center for Africa (BCCC-Africa), UNDAF and Representatives from Member countries responsible for Environmental Reporting: Nigeria, Benin, Ghana, Cote d’Ivoire, Liberia, Guinea, Sierra-Leone, Guinea-Bissau, Gambia, Senegal, Mali, Burkina-Faso, Niger.
The meeting worked in groups and in plenary and made concrete decisions on major issues, including: annotated structure of the report, inclusion of national report, types of data to be utilized, budget, contract, milestones and future actions.