'African Package for Climate-Resilient Ocean Economies' Announced

We are all too aware that difficult times lie ahead for coastal communities. Coastal erosion, especially in West Africa, has already displaced communities, with economic losses costing about 2.3% of GDP in Togo alone. In the past 60 years, sea temperatures in the Western Indian Ocean increased 0.6 C, triggering mass coral bleaching and deadly climate-related disasters across the region. The economic cost of the 1998 coral bleaching event to Zanzibar and Mombasa was in the tens of millions of dollars. The natural cost is still unknown.

Without action, fish catches are projected to drop because of climate change – possibly by one half in Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, Liberia, Togo, Nigeria and Sierra Leone, according to The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations. When we talk to the fishers and fishmongers of coastal communities about their daily survival challenges and their fears for the future, our resolve deepens to support Africa’s vision to fulfill the economic potential of its oceans. Despite these challenges, we are optimistic. At the UN climate change conference last month in Marrakech, Morocco, the World Bank, the FAO, and the African Development Bank announced the African Package for Climate-Resilient Ocean Economies. This ambitious package of technical and financial assistance is designed to implement climate change adaptation and mitigation work, and draw on the comparative advantages of the three organizations.

http://blogs.worldbank.org/voices/invigorating-africa-s-climate-resilient-ocean-economies

Ollivier Girard/CIFOR

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