Adaptation to Climate Change in Coastal Zones of West Africa (ACCC)

The project understands the risks that climate change poses to conservation efforts intended to sustain fisheries. The specific actions that the project is undertaking includes: country-specific coastal erosion assessments, consultations with stakeholders to identify exitisting strategies and capacities to address the problem of erosion, the selection of promising strategies (and implemented at pilot test sites), to monitor the results, and to disseminate lessons learned. “Strategies” include both adaptation actions (e.g., mangrove reforestation) and capacity-buildling (e.g., awareness-raising). Findings from the pilot projects will be used to integrate climate change and adaptation issues into existing coastal management, to develop plans and policies that induce cooperation across sectors,  to spur the creation or improvement of national policies that facilitate adaptation to climate change in coastal areas, to enhance regional cooperation in undertaking these challenges, and to establish a clearinghouse to store and disseminate lessons and best practices.

Other partner organizations (local, national and international):

• Ministère de l’Environnement et de la Protection de la Nature, Direction de l’Environnement et de la Protection de la Nature (Senegal)
• Ministère du Développement Rural et de l’Environnement, Direction de l’Environnement (Mauritanie)
• Ministerio dos Recursos Naturais, Direcçao Geral  do Ambiente (Guinea Bissau)
• National Environment Agency (Gambia)
• Ministry of Environment and Agriculture, Direction Générale de l’Environnement (Cape Verde)

The overall objective of the Full Project is to mainstream adaptation to climate change into Integrated Coastal Area Management (ICAM) planning in the participating countries through the development and implementation of pilot adaptation activities in response to shoreline change. This will involve the development of strategies, policies and measures, based on technical/scientific information and appropriate policy instruments. A major preliminary objective will therefore be to pilot adaptation activities in a local to sub-regional context. There is a strong rationale for addressing the issue of adaptation and shoreline change not only at the national level but also through the development of a regional approach.

The ACCC project which is about adaptation to climate change in coastal countries of West Africa started in November 2008 by the regional inception meeting. Since then the main achievements of the project were: the installation of the regional and national teams; the organization of national inception meetings in 4 countries; the organization of  3 regional training workshops, one on climate change and coastal zones and two  on technical aspects of mangrove restoration and dune stabilization; the new web site was launched.

Background

Climate change scenarios for the West African region include an anticipated increase in mean surface temperature of up to 0.5º C per decade, increased evapotranspiration, increased rainfall variability and intensity, accelerated sea level rise of around 1 m per century, any reduced coastal upwelling resulting from weakening of the Azores high and the trade winds, exacerbated by disruption from freshwater plumes of continental origin (for additional details, refer to Annex A3). The resultant shifts in the hydro-graphical and oceanic conditions due to climate change are likely to exacerbate coastal erosion and sedimentation problems in the West African region (Allersman and Tilsmans 1993 – quoted in Africa Environmental Outlook (2000).

As all five countries are within the Canary Current Large Marine Ecosystem (and thereby aligned across an important environmental transition which is likely to be modified by sea level rise and climate change), a coastwise shift in climatic, hydro-graphical and oceanic conditions northward along the coast with global warming will be better identified and addressed by each of these countries if they understand features and processes in neighbouring state (as highlighted by Eric Bird during the STAP review of this proposal). 

This project is designed to foster such a collaborative effort by implementing a series of activities that lead to the improvement in the adaptive capacity to climate change of sensitive coastline ecosystems in the five countries. At the heart of the project is a combination of community based demonstration projects and UNDP & UNESCO led support to facilitate and build capacity to foster national level integration of policies that promote adaptive capacity to climate change of coastline ecosystems.