Current system around West Africa

In spite of the various sectoral national monitoring and assessment efforts, coastal area and marine data and information provide limited transboundary and integrated regional information upon which management actions and political decisions can be based at regional level negotiations. They are also invariably not designed to assess long-term trends and potential threats of cumulative impacts of human activities. Until recently most laboratories in the region did not have standardised methodologies and techniques for sampling, analysis and interpretation of data. There were relatively limited regional inter-calibration exercises to make their results inter-comparable prior to the implementation of the pilot phase of Guinea Current LME Project, i.e. GOG-LME.

The international community has long recognized the need to manage the marine environment, especially the maritime zones outside the jurisdiction of coastal States. In particular, Governments have been enjoined to take early action to adopt effective national measures for the control of significant sources of marine pollution, including land-based activities, living marine resources depletion and habitat degradation.Governments were also mandated, through various international protocols, to coordinate such management actions regionally and globally.

The Abidjan Convention for Co-operation in the Protection, Management and Development of the Marine and Coastal Environment of the West and Central African (WACAF) Region was born out of the need to undertake regional and common approaches to the prevention, reduction and combating of pollution in the marine environment, the coastal areas and related inland waters of western Africa.

The MV. Susainah

The Guinea Current region was one of the first regions where the LME concept was first applied for coastal and marine environmental management.

The Global Environment Facility (GEF) funded pilot phase project titled, "Water Pollution Control and Biodiversity Conservation in the Gulf of Guinea Large Marine Ecosystem" was implemented between 1995-1999. The project, an the initiative of five (later six with the participation of Togo) countries in the region (namely Benin, Cameroon, Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, Nigeria and Togo) was implemented with the technical assistance of UNIDO, UNDP, UNEP and the US-NOAA (under the United States Department of Commerce) and the collaboration of a host of national, regional and international organizations.