Dear readers and partners,
The Regional Partnership for Coastal and Marine Conservation in West Africa (PRCM) has, since 2018, been implementing an action plan titled “Environmental management of offshore oil and gas activities” carried by the COBIA Initiative.
This action plan comes in a context where offshore oil and gas activities in West Africa are experiencing significant and extremely rapid development, with Senegal and Mauritania at the forefront. In Guinea-Bissau and Sierra Leone, some reserves have been discovered in recent years. Although modest for the moment, they should accelerate in the near future.
This new industry holds great promise for national economies. However, if the activity is not properly supervised and controlled, it can have serious financial, social and environmental consequences.
Thanks to MAVA funding, PRCM, along with some twenty partners, is working to ensure that the requirements of protection of the marine environment, financial transparency and the development of local populations are taken into account. Among these partners, we have research centers, civil society organizations and State actors. This is an opportunity to salute the work they are doing as part of this action plan whose results to date are encouraging.
Several concrete actions have been undertaken, including the creation of an offshore community within the region, the creation of an e-learning platform and a MOOC on the environmental management of oil and gas activities, and the development of an Advocacy Guide for civil society organizations, to name a few.
In the rest of this publication, you will learn more about the work done under this action plan and that of our implementing partners.
I hope you enjoy reading this
Marico Demba PhD
Coastal Resilience and Climate Change Program Coordinator, PRCM
