Intervention area of the West and Central Africa Programme (PACO) of IUCN Partnership for environmental

governance in West Africa

PAGE

Central and West afriCa Programme - PaCo

international Union for Conservation of natUre

Central and West AfricaProgramme - PACO01 BP 1618 Ouagadougou 01Burkina FasoPhone: +226 25 40 99 42E-mail : paco@iucn.orgwww.iucn.org/paco

Intervention area of the Partnership for environmentalgovernance in West Africa programme (PAGE).

The IUCN Central and West Africa programme IUCN, International Union for Conservation of Nature, helps the world find pragmatic solutions to our most pressing environment and development challenges. IUCN’s work focuses on valuing and conserving nature, ensuring effective and equitable governance of its use, and deploying nature-based solutions to global challenges in climate, food and development. IUCN supports scientific research, manages field projects all over the world, and brings governments, NGOs, the UN and companies together to develop policy, laws and best practice.

The actions of the Central and West Africa Programme (PACO) are part of the implementation of the IUCN four-year programme. They concern both issues of conservation policies as well as global, regional and local environmental governance and field projects related to sustainable biodiversity management. To contribute to the IUCN four-year Programme, PACO is banking on five regional thematic programmes (RTPs), which develop a regional vision and implement their programmes and projects : Forest Conservation; Water and Wetlands; Coastal and Marine; Protected Areas; Law, Policy and Governance. PACO covers 25 countries and is supported by programme offices and project offices. PAGE is part of the RTP «Water and Wetlands».

A regional initiative to support environmental and development policies in West Africa Partnership for Environmental Governance in West Africa - PAGE is a regional five-year programme aimed at improving the livelihoods living conditions of the people of West Africa through strengthened environmental policies and institutional frameworks. In fact, this partnership already exists, and it is because it has already produced significant outputs in the areas of governance and natural resource management at local, national and sub-regional levels that its members intend to extend the work to 2018. Gradually since 2009, sub-regional institutions and authorities of the Volta and Niger Basins, Ministries in charge of water resources, the environment and sustainable development of six West African countries as well as local partners, have learned to work together within the Poverty Reduction and Environmental Management Initiative (PREMI) - www.iucn.org/premi. At various geographical levels and in many areas related to resource management and environmental governance, IUCN has sought to strengthen dialogue between institutional actors and civil society and to support the implementation of national and regional policies dedicated to the environment. PAGE deepens these actions, with the aim of changing the scale of interventions involving a larger number of stakeholders better prepared.D

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FundingSida - Swedish International Development Agency

Partners• ECOWAS - Economic Community of West African States • UEMOA - West African Economic and Monetary Union• CILSS - Inter-States Committee for Drought Control in the Sahel• VBA - Volta Basin Authority• NBA - Niger Basin Authority• GWP/WA - Global Water Partnership – West Africa• NDH/Mali - National Directorate of Hydraulics/Mali• SP/PAGIRE – BF - Permanent Secretariat of the Action Plan for Integrated Water

Resources Management of Burkina Faso.• National and regional coordination of basin natural resource users• NDH – Guinea - National Directorate of Hydraulics of Guinea• CIFOR - Center for International Forestry Research• GWI - Global Water Initiative• WWF - World Wildlife Fund• RAMPAO - West Africa Protected Marine Areas Network

Associated programmes

• EPIC - Ecosystems protecting infrastructure and communities• GWI - Global Water Initiative• PDREGDE/ABN - Programme for the development of water resources and sustainable

Management of ecosystems in the Niger Basin• PRAI/MFD – Regional Integrated Management Programme of the Fouta Djallon Forest

For more information• The website of PREMI www.iucn.org/premi • The website of PAGE www.iucn.org/page

Strengthen partnerships to address environmental challenges

Following PREMI, actors have agreed on the importance of building partnerships to achieve significant and lasting results. PAGE is built around the establishment and strengthening of various types of partnerships.

• Support existing institutions Give each partner the opportunity to play their role, with IUCN contributing on the one

hand to build the capacity of organizations and institutions, and on the other hand to connect field actors to national, regional and even global policy-makers and economic decision-makers, to improve on policy and legislative processes.

• Enriching PAGE through partnerships and co-funding Rally additional skills and resources within and outside IUCN to cover the diversity of

themes and achieve the targeted ambitious outputs.

• Support local actors in the quest for technical solutions Facilitate the process of dialogue between actors in order to develop long-term visions

shared by the actors in the river sub-basins, ownership by partners action strategies, quest for solutions and raising first and foremost local resources.

Coordinated and multi-actor basedinterventions under five specific areas

Setting up of IWRM in West AfricaThe ambition of the PAGE Programme is to contribute to the current dynamics by further involving the user in water management and enabling the Water Resource Coordination Center (WRCC) to assert its leadership in the coordination of the regional policy on water resources in West Africa, more particularly in the Volta, Senegal, Niger and Mono river basins.

Mainstreaming of the environmental dimension in river basin managementBy building pathways for experience and best practice sharing, PAGE is bringing actors together, specifically the academics, practitioners, the media, decision-makers and opinion leaders.

Sustainable management of ecosystem goods and servicesImproving the health of ecosystems and increasing the goods and services that they render would directly benefit the production systems of local societies. The communities will thus develop their resources and capacity to cope with climate change. The PAGE supports the acknowledgement of the contribution of ecosystems to agricultural production systems and to the well-being of the populations.

Integrating the climate change issue in the planning processThe consideration of adaptation to climate change in development planning appears as an imperative nowadays for policymakers at all administrative levels. The tools developed to that effect such as the toolbox for planning, monitoring & evaluation of climate change adaptation capacity (TOP-SECAC) have proven to be efficient. To respond to this imperative, every country should have a critical mass of trained experts. The PAGR supports the creation of such expertise.

Restoration of degraded ecosystemsEcosystems are overused, which undermines their balance and their very existence. In the face of this situation, PAGE has undertaken actions to reverse the current degradation trend and establish sustainable management practices of natural ecosystems.

Reconciling sustainable resource management and development in the West African context

One of the greatest environmental challenges West Africa is facing is the need to reconcile development needs with sustainable natural resource management. Today, there is an urgent need to enhance biodiversity in order to alleviate poverty.

In a context of increasingly degraded natural resourcesWest Africa is the most densely populated region of Africa. Although urbanization is accelerating, especially in coastal cities, the region is still mostly rural and the main activities on which the vast majority of the population depends for employment and income generation are agriculture, fishing, pastoralism and the direct use of fauna and flora. These activities are mostly based on the exploitation of natural resources subject to continuous degradation processes related to the increasing needs of a growing population, coupled with the threat of change and climate variability.

Concerted action for sustainable solutionsAdjusting the region’s development trajectory so that it fully integrates biodiversity enhancement and conservation and involves all stakeholders including the most vulnerable in identifying just and lasting solutions, requires much more than technical solutions, equipment and infrastructure. This is why through PREMI and now PAGE, IUCN and its partners are coordinating their efforts to make the decision-making process more inclusive and transparent based on the use of reliable knowledge and tools tailored to the needs of actors. Thus, from the level of a few sites to national and regional levels involving a wide range of actors, IUCN has initiated dialogues and coalitions for action, always aimed at supporting and achieving political and economic dynamics for regional integration at work in West Africa.