Accra to Host Regional Capacity Building Workshop On Impact of Climate Change in West Africa ECOWAS

30 August 2011
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Economic Community of West African States (Abuja)
press release

Accra — A capacity building workshop for the development and implementation of relevant measures by ECOWAS Member States for direct access of funds and status of international negotiations on climate change will take place from 31st August to 2nd September 2011 in Accra, Ghana.

Participants will discuss a presentation on the development of Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions (NAMAs) in the ECOWAS region, capacity building for implementation of NAMAs and enhancing negotiations in South Africa on the Kyoto Protocol regarding financial issues.

The workshop will also address the mainstreaming of NAMAs and climate change into development programmes, and develop strategies to monitor the implementation of NAMAs in the region. It will also discuss capacity building of West African negotiators on climate change vis-à-vis the positions of countries and major blocks in order to enrich Africa's position in the climate change negotiations.

The ECOWAS Commission and a mission from Ghana met last May at the Commission's Abuja Secretariat to discuss the outcomes and recommendations of the first collaborative NAMAs workshop held in Accra with ECOWAS climate change negotiators and also to prepare for the forthcoming regional workshop. That meeting recommended that the Commission should liaise with the Ghana team to explore the possibility of getting responses analyzed by a consultant, while the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Ghana should share experiences with their offices in other ECOWAS Member States to help facilitate the development of their NAMAs.

The Commission was also requested to remind Member States to submit the lists of NAMAs and topics for discussion and to ensure that other relevant stakeholders were invited to the workshop. The 2007 Bali Action Plan on Climate Change required that NAMAs be developed by country parties in the context of sustainable development, supported and enabled by technology, financing and capacity building, in a measurable, reportable and verifiable manner. With a promise to serve as a bridge between developed and developing country parties, following the principle of "common but differentiated responsibilities", NAMAs have been steadily refined through international negotiations.

In December 2009, the Copenhagen Accord focused significantly on NAMAs, but many questions remained unanswered. For instance, while developed countries agreed to provide US$30 billion in fast-track financing between 2010 and 2012 and to mobilize U.S.$100 billion per year by 2020, no decisions were made by 2009 on the modalities and required institutions. Experts believe that to enable the framework to function, mechanisms must be in place to raise and distribute the funds and with the procedures to measure, report and verify NAMAs.

Read the original article on Ecowas.

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