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Washington, D.C., November 24, 2003
Presse Release from The World Bank Group
GEF Grant Supports Plan to Protect West African Waters
Media Contacts:
Hutton G. Archer
Global Environment Facility (GEF)
Tel: 1 (202) 473-0508
Fax: 1 (202) 522-3240
E-mail: harcher@theGEF.org
A $21.45 million grant, approved today by the Council of the Global Environment Facility (GEF), will support 16 West African coastal countries in creating and implementing a program to protect a shared natural resource: the Guinea Current Large Marine Ecosystem.
"The Guinea Current Large Marine Ecosystem’s rich biodiversity of mammals, corals, turtles, birds, and other species is a critical part of the world’s overall biodiversity," said Len Good, CEO and Chairman of GEF. "This GEF project is intended to help avoid further losses of biodiversity and improve the health of this threatened ecosystem, which is vitally important to the livelihoods and food security of people in West African coastal countries."
The project will be implemented by the UN Development Programme and the UN Environment Programme, in partnership with the UN Industrial Development Organization. The $21.45 million GEF grant has leveraged $33.87 million in cofinancing from other sources, including each of the 16 developing countries involved in the project. Those countries are Angola, Benin, Cameroon, Republic of Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, Gabon, Ghana, Equatorial Guinea, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Nigeria, Sao Tome and Principe, Sierra Leone, and Togo.
The Guinea Current large marine ecosystem, ranked among the world’s most productive coastal and offshore waters in the world, represents a major source of food and other economic assets for West African coastal countries. Threats to these habitats include unsustainable fishing practices, mining activities such as oil and gas production, pollution from land-based sources, and degradation of coastal areas. There is increasing recognition among the 16 countries that a regional management framework for the sustainable use of the ecosystem is urgently needed. The project will strengthen cooperation among countries within the context of the Abidjan Convention on Cooperation for the Protection and Development of the Marine and Coastal Zones of West and Central Africa, which entered into force in 1984.
The GEF project will address the problems of fisheries depletion, coastal erosion, and land-based sources of marine pollution. A program of legal, policy, and institutional reforms and investments will be prepared to address priority trans-boundary concerns. The project will provide technical assistance to strengthen both national and regional capacities for the implementation of the plan. In addition, the project will support cooperative programs in data sharing and legislative reforms to enhance regional collaboration to implement the plan.
The project builds upon an earlier GEF pilot initiative, which involved six countries in the Guinea Current and focused on preventing pollution from land-based sources. Ten additional countries sharing the ecosystem have joined this project, bringing the number of participating countries to 16. All 16 countries participated actively in project development activities, and as a result, have decided to provide financial support for the project, in spite of severe socio-economic conditions in some areas, and in other areas, armed conflict.
About the GEF
The Global Environment Facility (GEF) is an international financial organization with 176 member countries that acts as a major catalyst for improving the global environment. GEF grants support projects in developing countries in the areas of biodiversity, climate change, international waters, land degradation, the ozone layer, and persistent organic pollutants.
Since its creation in 1991, the GEF has allocated $4.5 billion in grants to support more than 1,300 projects in more than 140 developing nations and countries with economies in transition. GEF has committed approximately US $117.4 million in small grants to NGOs and community groups in developing countries, directly involving them in addressing global environmental problems
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