Relocating from West Africa's Coast Due to Climate Change
Along the beach in Mondouku, Côte d'Ivoire, a group of fishermen have just returned with their catch. Many of them come from neighboring Ghana, and they tell us that they come to the Ivorian part of the coast because there are more fish here. Still, they explain that the fish are smaller in size and number compared to previous years. The beach they are sitting on is lined with small hotels and cabanas destroyed in a storm surges over the past few years. A bit further down the coast, near the Vridi Canal, we speak with Conde Abdoulaye, who runs the lobster restaurant that his father ran before him. Even at low tide, the water laps against the steps of the restaurant and a retaining wall which he has rebuilt numerous times. He says he knows it is inevitable that at some point the sea will swallow his restaurant, and he will have to leave. He blames the canal for most of the beach erosion, but also acknowledges that changing weather patterns and increasing storms have contributed to the damage.
The visits were part of an identification mission for the West Africa Coastal Areas (WACA) Resilience Investment Project, which is proposed to provide support to six countries--Benin, Cote d’Ivoire, Mauritania, São Tomé and Príncipe, Senegal, and Togo--to better manage coastal erosion and climate risk. In many communities along the West African coast, it is becoming increasingly dangerous, and in some cases impossible, to live close to the sea, because the beach is disappearing at an alarming rate.
São Tomé and Príncipe communities have asked the government for assistance in relocating after recurrent storm surges washed away homes, and claimed lives. Here, a program to pilot voluntary relocation is working with four communities, starting with participatory risk and vulnerability mapping to identify who is most at risk and needs to move. New land has been identified, and plots are being allocated with the communities driving the process. In order to prevent people from returning to the vulnerable areas, and to ensure that the new, safer location attracts more people, the government is planning to invest in the new areas.
Ami Vitale / World Bank