Dear partners,
Africa is the continent that is most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. Yet, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), it emits only about 4% of greenhouse gases. In West Africa, for example, the increase in temperature is 1.5 times greater than the global average, with various consequences including recurrent droughts, rising sea levels and temperatures, worsening coastal erosion, loss of habitat for species, general degradation of ecosystems.
These climate changes firstly threaten the primary sector—agriculture, livestock, fisheries, and forestry —which is crucial for a country’s economy and food security. The socio-economic impact on coastal areas is also significant, as these areas are home to millions of people and infrastructure worth billions of dollars.
It is therefore imperative to help countries adapt to the impacts of these changes through sustainable and concerted solutions, using both national and regional approaches. PRCM recently launched a call for innovative projects as part of our regional RESILAO project, which aims to strengthen the resilience of coastal ecosystems and communities in West Africa. We will primarily focus on this project for the next six months, while still advancing our other projects. We believe that only a regional approach can strengthen resilience to climate change.
In this spirit, we have signed a Memorandum of Understanding with other international and regional organisations, namely the West African Economic and Monetary Union (UEMOA), the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and the Abidjan Convention, to cooperate in safeguarding the marine and coastal environment. This demonstrates the essential role we intend to play in addressing the environmental challenges we face today.
Furthermore, we have recently launched the Blue Bijagos project, which strives to promote sustainable management of marine resources and improve the livelihoods of communities in the MPAs of the Bijagos Archipelago in Guinea-Bissau. Further information will be available in the upcoming newsletter issue.
We wish you an enjoyable read,
Dr Ahmed Senhoury, Executive Director of PRCM
