GCCA+ West Africa project’s 2020 annual review: concrete achievements have been made to accelerate action on climate
The GCCA+ West Africa (GCCA+ WA) project is in its third year of implementation. The project achieved concrete results in 2020 despite the global health crisis, notably through the financing of 11 new climate smart agriculture pilot projects and capacity building of institutions and actors in the sub-region.
Financing climate-smart agriculture pilot projects
In line with its action plan, two calls for projects were launched to finance adaptation and mitigation initiatives in the agricultural sector. "In total, 15 climate-smart agriculture pilot projects with a total budget of 3.1 million Euros have been selected in 11 West African countries," explains Laure Bruma, coordinator of the GCCA+ West Africa project.
Implementing these pilot projects is an opportunity for ECOWAS member states to identify local solutions to address the impact of climate change. "Promoting the emergence of innovative field solutions to strengthen the climate resilience of agricultural and rural actors is essential to sustainably improving productivity, farm incomes, and ensuring food security," adds Laure Bruma.
On the ground, the initiatives selected are beginning to bear fruit. One example is the Climate Intelligent Rice Cultivation Project (RIFAC) in Benin, implemented by Eclosio, one of the 15 GCCA+ West Africa grant recipients, which reaches 1,375 producers and users and at least 114,000 consumers of local rice. "Our ambition is to produce and process much more rice since by using this "smart valleys" approach, we will develop our entire lowland and increase our sowing. This will not only allow us to fight against food insecurity but also create jobs in our village and our community", says Tchoumon Fernard, farmer and beneficiary of the RIFAC project.
Improving the academic offer on climate change in the region
After the graduation of an initial class of 25 students in the Professional Master in Climate Change and Sustainable Development (MCCDD) in 2019, a second class of 23 students was launched, among which 20 students benefited from a GCCA+ West Africa project grant.
Some of the actors trained are already out in the field providing institutions in the region with their expertise on climate change issues. In the same way, the project has supported the launch of four doctoral theses on carbon monitoring in Benin, Niger, Burkina Faso and Ghana in order to promote the availability of research data on climate and its impacts.
Supporting the implementation of the Paris Agreement
In 2020, the GCCA+ West Africa project also focused its efforts on supporting countries in their commitments to the operational implementation of the Paris Agreement. Consequently, the project facilitated the design and dissemination of the ECOWAS Guide to the Implementation of the Paris Agreement for application by Member States. "This guide aims to provide our Member States with decision-making tools in developing their policies and the establishment of bodies and mechanisms in accordance with the Paris Agreement," explained Sékou Sangaré, ECOWAS Commissioner for Agriculture, the Environment, and Water Resources.
On the other hand, the diagnosis used as a framework for the revision process in Guinea Bissau’s Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) has the support of the GCCA+ West Africa project which has allowed the "baseline situation" to be updated in order to reduce greenhouse gas emission and improve adaptation targets for the period 2020-2030. Similarly, the pilot supports in Togo have facilitated integration of climate change in the methodology used to develop the Communal Development Plans (CDP) and the definition of monitoring indicators for the CDN at community level.
Furthermore, for the purpose of facilitating the monitoring and implementation of NDCs, the GCCA+ West Africa project has supported the launch of a particularly relevant ECOWAS project: the institutionalization of the monitoring of climate finance flows in the CILSS-ECOWAS zone with the publication of the first mapping of climate finance flows to the ECOWAS-CILSS zone in 2020, which will be updated regularly. The aim of this project is to facilitate access to climate finance for countries in the zone, "the crux of implementing NDCs" according to Alain Sy Traoré, the ECOWAS Commission’s Director of Agriculture and Rural Development.
More about GCCA+ West Africa
Funded by the European Union with EUR 12.1m, the GCCA+ West Africa (WA) regional project is implemented by Expertise France, under the leadership of the ECOWAS Commission and in partnership with the Permanent Interstate Committee for Drought Control in the Sahel (CILSS). This project is part of the regional cooperation efforts. It aims to support the concrete implementation of the climate commitments made in Paris by ECOWAS Member States.
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