About 17 percent of West Africa’s territory, or 84 million hectares, are covered by forests. These forests are an important source of energy and livelihoods for the region's population. Between 2010 and 2020, the region lost an average of 52,920 hectares of forest cover per year due to excessive exploitation (Source: FAO Forest Resources Assessment 2020), including the harvesting of wood fuel which represents about 85 percent of the total energy consumption of West African countries, uncontrolled logging, extensive agricultural system, bushfire, (ECOWAS, 2015), etc.    

In response to these threats, the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), in partnership with the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and with the financial support of the Swedish International Development Agency (Sida), has been implementing, since 2019, a five-year regional project "Global Forest Transformation for People and Climate_ Focus on West Africa".

The objective of the project is to strengthen decision-making on sustainable forest and land management in West Africa by improving knowledge of forest dynamics, supporting legal reforms, and demonstrating and sharing best community forestry practices in the region and globally.

After three years of implementation, project stakeholders and partners met on April 1, 2022, for the fourth annual meeting of the Steering Committee under the chairmanship of the ECOWAS Commissioner for Agriculture, Environment and Water Resources, H.E. Sékou Sangaré. For half a day, the steering committee members were informed of the main achievements of the project. These included (i) the finalisation of the "West Africa Forest Data Assessment," with the identification of critical data gaps and capacity development needs in forest data inventory and analysis; (ii) the development of the West African Land Cover Reference System (WALCRS) to address the need to come up with one  harmonized Land Cover Classification System (LCCS) legend of the 15 ECOWAS countries in order to speak a common language about the different types of land occupation systems in the sub region; (iii) training, of 30 experts and focal points from the sub-region, on the Land Cover Classification System version 3 (LCCS-v3) to develop their capacity to use and develop the Land Cover Classification System for land, forest and water monitoring (iv) capacity development for 130 forestry and remote sensing/GIS technical staff members from 29 countries (including 12 ECOWAS Member States) in geospatial analysis of satellite images and data - 30 percent of participants were women; (v) the selection of the AGRHYMET Regional Centre as the host institution to integrate the project portal into their existing geoportal for more synergy, complementarity, cost sharing and ownership at the sub-regional level, and with the objective of facilitating transboundary data sharing for better management of the region's ecosystems; (vi) the selection of 14 community-based forestry demonstration initiatives through a call for proposals; and (vii) the co-publication, between FAO, the ECOWAS Gender Development Centre and Sida, of an info brief on Gender and Forestry in West Africa: Preliminary findings and recommendations for West Africa.

H.E. Sékou Sangaré welcomed the progress made while stressing that "this project contributes to the fight against deforestation and the protection of the environment in West Africa. We are interested in the project's model and we hope that the activities will be strengthened on the ground with the populations and elected officials.”

Mr Ayélé Kebede Gebreyes Program Manager at Regional Development Cooperation Africa, Environment and Climate, of Sida expressed his satisfaction with the progress made toward the achievements of the project's objectives. "The achievements show us that we are on the right path to support the implementation of the 2013 ECOWAS Convergence Plan for the Sustainable Management and Use of Forest Ecosystems in West Africa, which aims to mobilize political, institutional, financial and technical support to address transboundary forest issues in the 15 ECOWAS Member States," he stated.

FAO leads the coordination and implementation of this regional project. For the past two years, the implementation of project activities has faced challenges related to the Covid-19 pandemic. Despite these obstacles, many activities have been carried out with tangible results. "As you all know, 2021, like 2020, has been a challenge with the Delta variant. Adaptive management, creativity and flexibility in the way we conduct our work were needed to reach our objectives. Our achievements were possible thanks to the collaborative efforts and good teamwork between the three institutions: Sida, ECOWAS and FAO, as well as the use of an adaptive management approach by the project team," stated Dr. Gouantoueu Robert Guei, FAO Subregional Coordinator for West Africa, emphasizing the fruitful collaboration and expressing his deep appreciation to the two partners.

The partners agreed to continue discussions to finalize the budget for the year 2022 and accelerate the implementation of activities on the ground.